Beth's Acceptance

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  * * * * *

  She woke to the light of day shining directly in her eyes and the fizzing of soft pleasure circling through her. It took her several minutes to awaken properly and realize why her body was tingling in such a delightful way.

  She was lying on her side, her head on Lindál’s arm and her body curled into his. Two spoons could not be more connected. His other arm rested on the mattress in front of her, the hand curled under her breast. His thumb was stroking her nipple, circling it, teasing it to a tight, erect post.

  “Better than coffee,” she murmured.

  “On that, I’ll take you on trust. I haven’t the courage to try coffee. The smell is an offense,” Lindál murmured in her ear. “Have you ever really truly smelled it?”

  The windows of Zack’s bedroom gave her a view of lower Manhattan on a busy fall weekday, sunny and washed clean by yesterday’s rain. Normal and sane. But she was lying here with an elf’s arms around her, after fucking him and a vampire for most of the previous night. She shivered and turned in his arms to look at him. “I’m supposed to be at a lecture right now.”

  “What subject?”

  “World politics.”

  Lindál smiled, his eyes dancing. “Your political views are being radically altered without benefit of a formal lecture.”

  She grimaced. “I don’t get credit for sleeping with vampires and elves, though.”

  Lindál moved his head, as if he were listening to something far off, concentrating on it, frowning. “Damn,” he muttered.

  Abruptly, he wasn’t there. She fell forward onto the mattress where his body had been and now wasn’t, feeling a cold rush of air against her face.

  Startled, she sat up, putting it together. Lindál must have heard something that alarmed him and had teleported either to it to deal with it, or away from it. She assumed he was dealing with it. Lindál was the type to run away. She only hoped he’d paused to dress on his way to the confrontation and had picked up his knife. He had been quite naked.

  There were not many things on Earth that would concern Lindál and all of them were matters that involved her. That also meant they involved Zack. Therefore, she must warn Zack if his own hyper-senses hadn’t already alerted him. She glanced at the sunlight and recalled a whispered comment of Lindál’s from the previous night. “Leave it for daylight when your instincts can do nothing but whimper, son of night.” Zack’s abilities were stunted in daylight, then.

  She threw herself out of the bed and clutched the chiffon gown to her neck, as she raced about the apartment looking for Zack. Two minutes’ search told her the apartment was quite empty. Wherever Lindál was, Zack must be, too.

  She hurried to the guest bedroom to dress in street clothing that would stand up to a fight, if it came to that. But there, Zack’s uncanny foresight let her down. There was nothing warrior-like in the garments hanging on the rod. While she would have preferred an iron chest plate and chain mail, the best she could do was a pair of dark indigo jeans and a leather bustier over a black lace shirt—the most substantial shirt in the wardrobe and the only one with long sleeves. She hesitated over using real leather, but then she remembered the claws on the creatures in Morningside Park scraping across her arm. The leather would be protection against those claws and teeth. With a sigh, she laced herself into it.

  The jeans were actually too long for her legs—another shock for her, as she normally never had to adjust jeans and often ended up with them being too short after a wash or two. She ended up donning a pair of boots with sturdy high-heels just to keep the jeans from scuffing the ground and tripping her up as she walked.

  She looked in the mirror and realized her face was washed out above the all-black clothing and hastily applied makeup, including too liberal an application of coral red lipstick. She hurried, for in the back of her mind she was worrying about Lindál and the fact that the apartment was too quiet. Zack was out there, too. It wasn’t like she could head out there herself. She had no idea where they were.

  Then she heard angry voices from outside the apartment and her heart squeezed to a stuttering stop. She didn’t have a single weapon here and no idea how to use one, even if she did.

  She hurried through to the main room, feeling sick, wondering how she could handle these next few moments when nothing in her life so far had prepared her for them.

  Chapter Four

  There was a prosaic-enough sound: A key fitting in the lock of the door. But still the sound of many angry voices bickering and shouting came through the door.

  Then the door opened and people were boiling into the room. Many of them.

  Beth felt the air shift next to her and suddenly, Lindál was standing in front of her, his back to her. Protecting her. Zack moved to stand shoulder to shoulder beside him. Neither of them glanced at her. They were stiff with tension as they watched the others in the room argue amongst themselves. Lindál’s hand was on the knife tucked into the back of his trousers and it was half-drawn.

  Zack half-turned his head to Lindál. “I don’t have the strength,” he murmured. “Not in daylight.”

  Lindál gave a fractional nod and filled his chest. “Silence!” he roared.

  The room came to a swirling stop as the others turned to them.

  “You dare...!” a voice began.

  “Just shut the fuck up,” Zack said dryly. “We’ve been at this for two hours and all the wounded feelings are just getting in the way.”

  “Yes, they are, aren’t they?” A man pushed forward from the back of the group, and settled himself on one of the barstools. Beth could barely see him between Zack’s and Lindál’s shoulders. “If we promise to behave ourselves, will the pair of you agree to step aside and at least let us see the lady you’re so carefully protecting there?”

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to speak for the group, sir,” Lindál said stiffly.

  “No, but I will,” said another, rougher voice to the left of them, closer by the door, with a Latino accent. “I’ll tear out the throat of the next idiot who lifts his voice. Clear?”

  Silence.

  “I think that’s agreed, then,” the Latino one said.

  Lindál and Zack stepped aside and each of them turned and picked up her hands. They coaxed her forward.

  Beth looked around the room. At first glanced, the people in it looked like normal humans. Then she began to register differences. Details. There were subtleties, that—now she knew Zack and Lindál—she could focus on.

  There was a grey-headed man sitting on the barstool next to the breakfast bar, wearing a three-piece business suit. He had blue eyes the color of a summer day, and he watched her with a focused stillness so intense it was unsettling. His hair was longer and tied back neatly with a leather thong. That told her he was the one elvish person in the room beside Lindál. Everyone else was vampire. He was the one Lindál had called “sir”.

  The vampire by the door, leaning against the end of the breakfast bar, was the one who had spoken for them all. He was a dark-eyed, dark haired, Hispanic-looking man with a scowl on his face. He looked angry.

  There was a tall, red-headed man standing next to him, his arms crossed, looking thoughtful.

  They were the only ones Beth had time to focus upon before Zack spoke. “This is Beth Siegel. A human and the one we are bonding with.”

  It seemed like a ripple of emotion passed across the room, as if the very idea was abhorrent to all of them. But the Hispanic vampire’s threat had not been idle. Not a single person protested aloud. They glanced amongst themselves, moving restlessly and awkwardly.

  Beth realized that none of them knew what to do next. This was as much outside their experience as hers. The realization unlocked the tension in her and allowed her to take another step into the center of the room and speak. “As the sole human in the room, I suppose I must speak on behalf of my race. You all seem to know who each of you are. That puts me at a disadvantage. I would like to know who you are—or at least, your curr
ent roles.”

  The grey-haired elf smiled a little. “A fair demand,” he said easily. “My name is Amrod. In your language, I would be called the Chief of Staff for the Elvin race. I was called here not so much because of my role but because of my...” He hesitated, clearly searching for a delicate phrase.

  “Liberal attitudes,” Lindál finished.

  Zack snorted. “He wouldn’t have a heart attack and curl up his toes at what you’ve done, in other words.”

  “Not before thinking it through, anyway,” Lindál finished.

  Amrod didn’t seem upset at the description. “I also have long memories,” he added. “Lindál seem to think they may be useful. We’ll see.”

  “And you?” Beth asked, pointing to the Hispanic spokesman who had told the vampires to shut up.

  “They call me Diego Savage. I’m a hunter, when I’m not attending idiotic meetings of this nature. I warn you, I believe this is a waste of our time. Elves and vampires were not meant to breed—“

  “You’re breaking your own censorship, Diego,” the red-headed man said softly, behind him.

  Diego took a breath, pausing. “My apologies,” he said curtly to Beth, with a bow of his head.

  The red-headed man touched his own chest. “Alexander le Croix. I was human such a short time ago that you may consider me an ally in this room.” His blue-eyed gaze touched her in a way that convinced her of his sincerity and she nodded her thanks.

  She looked around the room, summing up the hostile faces. “We had no choice in this. I’m sure Zachariah and Lindál have explained this to you. All that’s left to discover is why it is happening, which is why they have called you here. In the history of vampires and elves, this has never happened before?”

  “Never,” Amrod said flatly.

  “God, no,” Diego said, pushing his hand through his hair. “You’d think the races would remember something so...significant.”

  She had a feeling Diego had been about to use a less neutral word than ‘significant’, but ignored it.

  “It reminds me of that story,” Alexander said to Zack. “You know, that one about the warrior queen that Regulus was talking about a few years ago.”

  Zack frowned. “The Seaveth Prophecy?”

  Diego snorted and closed his eyes wearily. “Prophecies. Jesus wept...”

  “A prophecy?” Amrod said sharply, turning on his stool to look at Alexander, who was standing behind him. “Tell me about it.”

  Zack shrugged. “No-one knows where it came from. Seaveth is a warrior queen who...who—” Zack swallowed, falling silent as he stared into middle distance, caught by his own thoughts. Then he shook his head. “No, it can’t be,” he muttered and sat on the coffee table, hanging his head.

  “Who what?” Beth insisted. “Zack, for heaven’s sake, talk to me!”

  He lifted his head. His face had lost color.

  “You need to feed?” she whispered.

  “I can last a few more minutes,” he said hoarsely, “but yeah, I’m going to have to recover very soon.” He licked his lips like they were dry and looked around the room. “Seaveth is the warrior queen and her arrival heralds the coming of the Grimoré—the dark shadow that swallows the land, served by vampeen beasts, who foreshadow their coming. She will fight the Grimoré, with her two partners at either side, the son of morning…and the son of night.”

  The silence in the room was almost total.

  Lindál caught at her arm. “Beth, what is your real name? What is ‘Beth’ short for?”

  She had trouble speaking. “Elizabeth,” she said. “But that’s only my second name. I can’t stand my real name. It’s...it’s Nikephoros.”

  Alexander cleared his throat. “That’s ancient Greek. It means ‘Victory.’”

  All the vampires were staring at her. She could feel her heart hammering at her ribcage, even though she didn’t understand why. “What don’t I understand?” she whispered to Zack.

  He took a breath. Let it out. “’Seaveth’ means ‘victory’ in the old vampiric lore.”

  She wanted to reach for his shoulder, or Lindál’s hand, but made herself stand still. She wouldn’t reach for them and expose her need and vulnerability, not in this room of people. She wouldn’t show any sign of weakness to any of them.

  “Is this when someone tells me ‘Siegel’ means victory too?” Diego asked with a sour note.

  “It does, actually,” she answered him, coolly. “It’s German. Do you have a problem with that?” She stared him in the eye, not backing down, even though her knees were threatening to give way. Just then, she felt warmth at her back and knew that Lindál was behind her, supporting her and shielding her. He’d felt her distress, just as he and Zack were able to feel her pleasure.

  Diego shook his head, but didn’t respond to her.

  Amrod cleared his throat a little. “It may interest you to know that elves also have a prophecy about a princess who will lead the way to victory against the Grimoré. We call her Cíetheil. You would spell that c-i-e-t-h-e-i-l here, but it’s properly pronounced see-veil, in old Elvish.” He looked around the room. “The annals have never mentioned that she would be human.”

  “But they do call the enemy she fights the Grimoré,” Lindál added.

  “The same,” Alexander murmured.

  “What does Cíetheil mean in Elvish?” Zack asked Amrod.

  Amrod pursed his lips. Reluctantly, he answered, “Victory.”

  This time, the wave of emotion that washed over the room was almost palpable. Lindál’s hand settled on her shoulder under her hair.

  “Give them time to absorb it,” Zack whispered as he rose to his feet next to her.

  “Give them time?” she hissed back.

  Diego slapped his hands on the counter and strode into the room proper. “It’s just an ancient prophecy. A coincidence combined with three randy people who can’t keep their hands off each other. Spring fever. From that you’re all going to leap into war preparations for a mythical enemy—”

  “We’ve seen them,” Beth said simply.

  Diego moved then. He leapt over the coffee table, grabbed her by the throat and threw her down on the table. She whipped her foot up between them, planted it on his chest and shoved hard. He staggered backwards and came charging forward again, but she was already up on her feet and by then, Zack and Lindál were surging forward to deal with the unexpected danger.

  Diego spun to face them and threw up his hands. “Wait!” he cried, his palms open and facing them.

  Zack threw out his arm, halting Lindál, who was brandishing his knife. He was staring at Beth, a deep crease between his brows.

  Beth stayed on the coffee table, wary. “What is it, Zack?”

  “Did you see it, Zachariah?” Diego said softly.

  Zack nodded.

  “One more thing and I might be willing to believe.” Diego held his hand out to Lindál. “May I?”

  Zack glanced at Lindál. “It’ll be fine. Give it to him.”

  Lindál hesitated, then gave Diego the knife. Diego weighed it with an experienced air, then turned and stepped up onto the table to face her. He was only an inch or so taller than her. His dark eyes drilled into her. “You’ve seen them, you say?”

  “The vampeen creatures that go before the Grimoré? Yes, I think so. We can show them to you.”

  Barely before she had finished speaking, he had plunged the knife toward her chest. She saw it coming, the long curved blade glinting in the sunny room and reached out to grab Diego’s wrist before the blade could touch her chest. She halted his arm when the knife tip was a few inches away and held it, looking at him. “Why did you do that?” He was not trying very hard to push the knife home. It was like arm wrestling a three year old.

  He grinned. “Testing a theory.” He dropped his arm and flexed his shoulder. “I told you, I’m a hunter. I have no time for silly chatter. Action suits me better.” He jumped off the table and held the knife out to Lindál. “You’re going to n
eed this, elf.”

  Lindál took it silently.

  Zack helped Beth to the floor once more. “You don’t know what you just did, do you?” he said quietly.

  She shook her head a little.

  “Diego was moving at full speed. Vampire speed. But you moved faster. Both times. You were stronger than him and held back the knife. The bonding is already changing us.”

  Amrod got to his feet and bowed. “My lady,” he said gravely. “It appears the races will need to prepare for war. The Grimoré are coming.”

  * * * * *

  “What are the Grimoré, anyway?” Beth asked Lindál.

  “No-one knows. Until now, everyone thought they were mythical. Like the boogey man humans here on earth use to scare little kids into behaving themselves. A bedtime tale.”

  The kitchen was empty of all but he and Zack, now. Zack had fed and was recovered. Lindál was cooking—a task that he enjoyed. Beth was making coffee, which Lindál refused to do.

  “But if they’re coming, aren’t they going to prey on humans, too? Humans, who don’t even have them as bed time tales? Who have no idea to even prepare for them?”

  “That’s our job,” Zack said, from the breakfast bar, where he was reading an ancient book that crackled as he turned the pages. “We get to protect them. It’s always been that way.”

  “Always? Protect us from what?”

  “Everything. It’s a far stranger world out there than you think,” Zack said.

  “Is that what Diego meant about being a hunter?”

  “He’s one of the best,” Zack said. “He’ll find those bodies we buried and he’ll track them back to their source, even though the trail is quite cold. He’ll do all that even though it’s the middle of a weekday in midtown Manhattan and he’s surrounded by humans who have no idea that the world is full of elves, vampires and more that would give them nightmares if they did.”

  “He has a chip on his shoulder,” Beth pointed out.

  Zack nodded. “There’s a reason for his name.”

  “Elves and vampires have that in common, don’t they?” Lindál observed. “Naming isn’t a casual thing.”