Lost Paradise

by Tara Fox Hall

  Devlin took it from me and examined it. “Yes, it must be. I saw you had it on last night. Do you have Danial’s on you?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s at his house. I left it there accidentally last week.”

  “Wear his for today, Sar,” Devlin said, laying the choker on the nightstand. “I’ll take yours to the jeweler who made it tonight. It’s possible with the pregnancy, there is some problem with it staying on.”

  “How can that be? I didn’t have a problem with Danial’s choker staying on when I was pregnant.”

  “You weren’t so much of a vampire then,” Devlin said good-naturedly. “This collar wasn’t designed for a vampire to wear. The blood mixture used for humans is different. They may need to rebalance this magically.”

  “I see,” I said, though I had no idea what he was talking about. “Thanks.”

  “Tell me if his falls off at all when you get home,” Devlin said. “I’m curious.” He gave me a kiss. “Have a good time with Theo.”

  * * * *

  “This is eel?” Theo said disbelieving, chowing down. “It tastes good, not slimy.”

  “Then I’ll bring you some more next time I go shopping,” I said, giving him a kiss. “I’ve got to see Danial before I go. Have a good day.”

  Heading upstairs, the bright smile left my face. Theo still hadn’t made any new discoveries. While I’d enjoyed the week so far, I didn’t know if my exultation would last if a lot of weeks went by. I was already missing my dogs and cats.

  Danial looked up as I entered the study. He reached into his drawer, then handed me his choker. “Go ahead. Let’s run the experiment.”

  I clasped it on. “Can you explain what Devlin meant about magical rebalancing?”

  Danial nodded in understanding, coming closer. “If you were turning, the choker would need to be altered,” he said softly, brushing his lips over my earlobe. “The choker is a magical thing, almost conscious of itself. If a person is turned while wearing it, it will fall off. But don’t worry; Dev can have it fixed easily, even have them alter it so you could wear it if you were a vampire. But you may not be able to remove it if he does that, Sar. I know you have gotten used to taking it off when you want to, so I thought you should know.”

  “Devlin had said Anna was always able to remove hers.” But she probably never had, once they were Oathed. Why would she have, if she only had one vampire lover?

  “Sar, you aren’t turning,” Danial said soothingly. “But you are changed. That might be enough.”

  “Devlin wanted to know if yours fell off at all.”

  Danial smiled in pleasure. “As do I.” He ran his hands down my arms, then embraced me. “Shall we test it with some physical activity?”

  I cracked up laughing, kissed him eagerly as an answer, then let him lead me downstairs.

  Chapter Eight

  I woke Devlin when I crawled in beside him. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said softly. “I missed you.”

  “I was barely gone,” I said lightly, worried he wasn’t going to let me go home on Sunday.

  “Seemed like days to me,” Devlin purred, then pulled me close.

  We dozed for another hour or so. About seven, Devlin stretched, looked at the clock, and abruptly swore. “I’ve got to go,” he said, hurriedly pulling on a suit. “I’ll be home about one, maybe two. Tomorrow night will be later still.”

  “No rush,” I said, giving him a smile. “I’ll be here.”

  “Good,” he said giving me a quick kiss. “Don’t work too hard,” he called, his footsteps fast on the stairs.

  After he left, I lay in bed a while, thinking about how much fun this all was. It was like a mini vacation, even with the filing. Suddenly, going home didn’t have the luster it had back this morning.

  I sat up, then hurriedly dressed. This had to be the result of the blood Devlin had given me yesterday. I’d better make sure Danial gave me a good bit of his on Saturday. I didn’t want to be in thrall to Devlin again.

  When I walked downstairs, Lash was on the couch in the living room watching South Park. “Hey, you were supposed to wait for me!” I said, cracking a smile.

  “You got up for lunch today,” he teased. “I thought you might need to sleep in a little. I was just passing the time.”

  I was getting used to the way he smiled, baring the one fang because of his scar. It no longer unnerved me, or made me flinch. In fact it seemed weird it had ever bothered me.

  “I’m well rested,” I lied. “Lead me to dinner.”

  As I ate my soup and Lash his sushi, he suddenly hissed, “Thanks for telling me about this. I never wanted to eat the fish I saw in stores. They were always huge fillets. I liked to catch and eat much smaller fish as a snake. This is more the size I used to catch, though of course the shape and type is not the same.”

  “Where did you catch them?” I asked curiously.

  “When I was little, in the swamps. I was born in the Everglades,” Lash said with deep emotion. “I miss it badly sometimes.”

  I pulled my chair closer to his, studying him. “Do you want me to take you there tonight?”

  Lash looked at me in shock. “You have been there? When?”

  “Yes,” I affirmed. “I went for a field course in college. It was amazing.”

  “Would you mind, just for a few minutes?” he hissed enthusiastically.

  “No,” I said, reaching for his hand. “Here—”

  “No,” he said, withdrawing it quickly. “I need to get my gun and my cell before we go. And you should get some bug spray from the hall closet. Meet me back here in two.”

  He was right; there would be mosquitoes there. I doused myself in bug spray, then rejoined Lash in the kitchen. “Ready?” I asked.

  He took my hand. “Ready.”

  I teleported us to the southernmost edge of the park. We arrived in front of the hotel near the water. Dusk had just arrived. We immediately got bitten, or at least, I did, but the spray kept most of them off. Lash looked around, then strode off back towards the swamp, me following.

  We came to the edge of the saw grass. There was only darkness beyond. Deep, unbroken darkness, and the soft whisper of things moving in that dark as they were hunting and being hunted. I smelled brackish water, green growing things, and the dampness of the ocean farther south. The stars above us were out, the sliver of moon that hung in the sky above us giving little light.

  Lash just stood there for some time, his back to me, his form motionless, scenting the air with his tongue, looking into the blackness. I let him have his space, busy covering up all my exposed skin.

  After fifteen minutes of this, Lash hissed once in abject longing, and then turned to me. “You should take us back,” he hissed softly. “I could stand here all night. This can’t be fun for you. You’re getting eaten alive.”

  “I understand the lure of home,” I said, oddly emotional. “Take as long as you want.”

  Lash looked uncertain I meant my words, but he turned back, and scented the air again for another few minutes. When he turned back to me again, he was resolute. “We should go back,” he said softly, taking my hand.

  When we arrived back, he hugged me gently, then let me go. “Thank you,” he whispered. “It was good to smell the mahogany again, and the saw grass.”

  “Anytime,” I replied, giving his hand a squeeze. “But now we’ve got to get to work.”

  Lash followed me downstairs where I put in a few more hours filing. This time he didn’t read as he always had, but instead looked off into space. He didn’t say anything, but I knew he must be thinking of the swamp, and the home he’d known long ago. Was any of his family still alive? He was so old, the answer was probably not. If he had had siblings, their children or grandchildren might be alive, but everyone else had to be dead. Not wanting to hurt him by mentioning it, I stayed silent.

  After filing, Lash and I sat down to watch 300, with me curled up on one end of the couch and him sprawled on the other, not touching. I watched
the opening scenes, then put my head down just for a second on my arms, and fell asleep.

  I woke up to loud familiar screaming. I’d watched this movie enough times to know the sounds of the final battle. But where was I? I was laying partially on somebody, curled around their lower body. Someone was stroking my hair back from my face gently with callused hands that were rough on my face. There was the scent of leather, autumn leaves, and the faint musky odor of earth.

  This was not Theo.

  I lifted my head, looked up into Lash’s face looking down at me, and froze.

  He removed his hand from my face. “You should go up to bed. I didn’t want to wake you, but you clearly need sleep. You almost fell off the couch, so I eased you down next to me.”

  “Sorry,” I said, blushing furiously, trying to untangle myself from him. My one arm, woven though the coils of his whip, took me a minute to unwind.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lash said easily, helping me get to my feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner. We can put the movie on again then, if you want.”

  We had a standing dinner date now. But Lash was supposed to be guarding me, so it made sense. Also, he’d made no moves on me. He could have tried to raise The Lust when I’d been lying there with him, and he hadn’t.

  I relaxed. “It’s a plan. See you then.”

  Lash nodded. “You asked me about the clothes yesterday. I left you a pile on Devlin’s loveseat. Anything you can’t fix you can throw out.” He turned and left.

  “Thanks,” I called awkwardly after him, then headed upstairs.

  * * * *

  The next day was the best one yet.

  I had set my watch alarm for eight. When it went off, I got up and threw on some clothes. Devlin grumbled, but when he heard that I was going with Lash to check out the gardens, he gave me a smile, and let me go.

  It took a good two hours. Lash showed me all of the gardens, while I scribbled notes furiously. Most of them were raised beds. Not knowing if there were any flowers there beneath last year’s weeds, I wrote down a list of possible plants, figuring to wait and see what emerged in the spring.

  Lash made no mention of the night before. He was polite, but not overly so. Relieved, and relaxed, I enjoyed the sunshine and his company, deciding finally that I liked him. Maybe he could be a jerk, but he’d been decent with me when it counted. That was what mattered.

  Afterwards, I went back to bed, and spent the rest of the day sleeping with Devlin. When I awoke with Dev at dusk, I was rested. He dressed, kissed me once warmly and then went off to work with Titus. I got dressed, then called Theo at Danial’s house for an update.

  “He isn’t here, he’s working,” Danial said crankily, when he answered. “And I hope you’ll be back to work next week, too, Sar.”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, surprised.

  “I finally put up the Solutions Inc. website,” Danial answered grumpily.

  “That’s great!” I said excitedly. “You’ve wanted to do that for ages.” I’d looked at so many designs with him over the years, I’d suspected this day might never come. Danial was always the perfectionist; it had to be perfect, or he wasn’t happy. But whatever he did do usually got great results. “So what’s wrong?”

  “Sar, we had a hundred emails our first day!” Danial said loudly. “I deleted the junk, but there are over thirty people to call. That’s just from today.” He paused. “I need you next week.”

  Sigh. “I’ll be there Monday at eight. Tell Theo I called.”

  Hanging up, I put the looming work to come out of my mind and went looking for Serena.

  We spent an hour sewing. Using Lash’s clothing, I showed her the basic stitches, and how best to repair clothing needing mending. There were a lot of Lash’s clothes in the pile, more than I had expected. The heavy cotton, denim, and wool were all in black, which made my work easy; I didn’t have to change my thread color once.

  Serena got the hang of it quickly. Nosy about the men who’d given her clothes to mend, I snuck glances at the fabric, but the dark navy blue shirts, single red shirt, white socks, and brown jeans didn’t give me any clues as to whom their owners might be. Asking flat out seemed in bad taste. But I made a mental note to pay attention to who wore blue shirts here.

  Some of what we worked on was normal wear and tear: socks needing darning, pockets that had ripped out, frayed cuffs, and unraveled seams. But several others were from fighting, though I didn’t see any bloodstains on the ripped and sliced cloth.

  Lash came in as we were finishing. “You fixed them all?” he hissed, surprised.

  Serena grabbed her clothes and edged fast towards the door. “Thanks, Sar. See you later.” She darted out.

  “Bye, Serena,” I said brightly, handing the clothes to Lash as if her behavior was perfectly normal. “It’s not hard to do mending. It’s just tedious sometimes. Yours was easy.” I gave him a knowing look. “Maybe you should be more careful when you fight.”

  Lash gave me an odd look in return. “Dinner?” he hissed.

  “Sure,” I said, making a face. “but we’re out of sushi. Do you want—”

  “I got some more for us today, while you and Dev were sleeping,” Lash said, going to the fridge and handing me several packages of eel, and one of vegetables.

  “You didn’t have to,” I said awkwardly. I got a plate, and filled it with sushi, wondering again if there was more to this sudden thoughtfulness, and if that more was a bad thing.

  Lash followed suit. “You need it.” He paused. “It’s probably the closest thing to raw meat that you can tolerate eating. Wereanimal children need a lot of protein. My mother always made sure we ate a lot of meat and fish. It is good for your werechild to eat this. You should try to eat it at least a few times a week, to give the baby what it needs to grow.”

  Suddenly, I wasn’t just awkward, I was an emotional mess, too. “Thank you,” I managed.

  “I told this to Devlin, but he is vampire and doesn’t understand,” Lash hissed furiously. “But most vampires don’t understand weres, or want to, other than to tell us what needs doing.”

  What was his issue with Dev? I’d absorbed from my time with Danial and Dev, not to mention the other Rulers, that most vampires looked down on weres, and that most, if not all, weres knew this and expected it, though they didn’t like it. Danial had always treated Theo pretty much as an equal, but he hadn’t thought of the foxes that way until I had called him on it. Even then, it was adopting Elle as his daughter that had finally made him realize that his employees had their own needs, personalities, and desires. It was clear from Dev’s comment when I had insisted on telling Serena about Vince, not to mention his treatment of Elle, that he thought of weres and even Titus as just creatures who were there to work for him, or make his life easier. But Lash I’d thought an exception, especially with Lash’s bedroom right next door to Devlin’s.

  “Did you two fight?” I asked finally, worried.

  “No, but we’re going to soon,” Lash said bitterly, then lapsed into a brooding silence.

  “Then let’s leave the work for tonight,” I said, taking my plate into the TV room. “Put on South Park, please.”

  Lash liked it at once, though he was shocked at the language. “These are children?” he said, flicking his tongue at me. “Children talk like this now?”

  “Third graders, no less,” I said, laughing.

  “I feel old,” he said ruefully.

  We were watching the episode about the Starbucks coffee house, when Dev called.

  “Sar’s fine, Dev,” Lash hissed angrily, after he answered it. “We are watching TV.”

  There was silence. Lash didn’t speak, but whatever Devlin was saying was pissing him off, as he began flicking his tongue rapidly, like a rattling angry tail.

  I had to shut this down. “Tell him you know what happened to his underwear,” I said quietly.

  Lash looked at me, and his mouth dropped open. I laughed, then gestured to the screen where
the underpants gnomes were singing songs and stealing underwear. Lash began roaring, laughing so hard he was choking. That set me off, tears streaming out of my eyes as I howled.

  “What is so funny?” Dev’s voice screamed out of the receiver.

  “We’re sorry the gnomes got your underwear,” Lash hissed contritely, giving me a wicked grin. “We managed to fend them off ourselves. We feel sorry for you.”

  I wiped at my eyes, the tears flowing like water as I gasped for breath. “Stop!” I yelled. “I can’t breathe!”

  Devlin sputtered on the other end of the phone. “I don’t wear underwear by choice! No one stole it! It was not worn in my time, you idiots! What the hell are you talking about? What’s going on there?”

  “You’d know if you were here,” Lash hissed, venom flowing in every word. “But you’re not, so you won’t.” He hung up the phone.

  “I solved one old mystery at least,” I said, grabbing for a tissue. “But he’ll be pissed you hung up on him.”

  “He’ll get over it,” Lash hissed, smirking. “That was great, Sar. He was so pissed, because he thought we were having fun here without him.”

  “Well, we are,” I said, snickering. “Hit play.”

  We watched a few more episodes. Soon it was after midnight. “I’m going to bed,” I said finally. “I don’t want to fall off the couch like last night.”

  To my surprise, Lash didn’t take the opening to banter. “Okay. Do you mind if I keep the DVD for a while?” he said formally. “I’d like to watch the rest.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, oddly awkward again. “I’ll be coming back sometime soon.” I walked off waiting for Lash to call goodnight after me, but he didn’t.

  * * * *

  It was close to two in the morning when I awoke. Devlin was not back yet. Guilty over the prank I’d instigated, I lay there sleepless thinking about it, wondering if he was delaying returning on purpose as a sort of punishment. Telling myself that was stupid, I decided to go get a drink of water. Irritated I’d forgotten to bring up a glass from upstairs, I put on my robe and headed for the kitchen. I was just starting down the stairs when a hissing voice cut the silence.