This is all so … wonderful, Rachel thought.
Connor and Locan stood at the edge of the pines staring at two piles of ladies’ clothing.
“They shouldn’t be much longer,” Connor said, and clapped Locan on the shoulder.
Several yards up the road, two men stumbled out of the trees and on to the roadway. One tripped, and then he tripped again.
“Get your ass up and let’s get outta here!” his companion demanded.
“Jesus … Jesus-Jesus-Jesus … what the fuck were they? Did you see Harry? I think one of ‘em got him. Should we go back for him?”
“Fuck that! Harry’s on his own. I’m never going back there again.”
“Jesus … what the hell … they were wolves … they were wolves, man! There ain’t supposed to be no fucking wolves around here.”
“Shut up! Let’s get outta here. And if Harry don’t show up, we know nothin’, right?”
“Shit! Poor Harry.”
“Fuck Harry.”
The two hurried past Connor and Locan, wheezing, trying to run stiff-legged from exertion. They didn’t notice them standing just inside the trees. Connor grinned as they passed.
Minutes later an effusion of blue luminescence illuminated the forest, and then another. Clare and Rachel, naked, stepped out of the trees. Connor had brought a cape that he placed around Clare’s shoulders.
Locan awkwardly retrieved Rachel’s skirt and sweater and held them out to her, but she stood unabashed. He thought her eyes sparkled.
“It was so incredible, Locan. My God … it was so incredible.”
He nodded. “C’mon, better get you dressed.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah.”
They returned to the tavern and seated themselves at a quiet booth by the bar.
“My mother loved a man,” Clare said, staring into the glass of clear amber liquid in her hand. “I am his child. I think, Rachel, that perhaps your grandmother, or great-grandmother loved such a man … perhaps the same man.” She sipped from her glass. Rachel thought a veil of melancholy shaded her face.
“Your … abilities,” Connor said. “very rarely pass down through the male line, and when it has, it has not ended well. As for you, Rachel, I would guess at puberty a restlessness overtook you. But I suspect you were raised in a disciplined family and that helped you suppress it. Still, were there times you wanted to tear your clothes off and go running into the night?”
“Yes … I did try to suppress it. I tried to suppress … a lot of different feelings.”
“You can control your shifts,” Clare said. “Your spirit is strong. You wanted to tear that filthy slob to pieces tonight, didn’t you?”
“Uh … yes. I never felt such pure, righteous …”
“Lethal?” Connor said.
“Yes, lethal rage. It was … intoxicating.”
Clare chuckled. “Just be careful what you eat.”
“Huh? Eat?”
“I think,” Connor said, “you’ve had more than enough placed on your plate for one evening, Rachel. Your questions will be answered, they’ll all be revealed. Decisions will need to be made, however. A long life awaits you.”
“How long?”
He shrugged. “I can’t say.”
He stood, and Clare stood with him. He took Rachel’s hand and kissed it, then Clare bent down and kissed her cheek.
“Bonne chance, little sister.”
Locan and Rachel remained.
“He said I’d live a long time, Locan.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Locan … how old is Connor?”
“Well … I’m not so sure. That debt he says he owes me. Seems an ancestor of mine, a Paladin, caught him napping one evening after a long pursuit. Had him cold. But, for whatever reason, he let him live. Just stuck his sword into the ground and they had themselves a nice chat, like a couple of gents.”
“His sword? When was this?”
“I dunno, around 800 I guess. Connor’s tangled with Roman legions …”
“Roman?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“And Clare?”
“Oh, Clare’s just a baby.”
Her eyes pressed him for an answer.
“Okay, she was born late in the sixteenth, maybe early seventeenth century.”
“Jesus, Locan. Are they … immortal?”
“Connor says no, but he has no idea how long he’ll live. They can be killed, so …”
“So what?”
“Nothing … just don’t get reckless.”
“Oh my God … Locan.”
“I know it’s a lot to dump on you all of a sudden. The main thing is, I need to convince Rome that you’re not a threat.”
“Why … Why are they hunting them?”
“I don’t know. Fear, mistrust … history.”
Rachel tossed back her drink. “They kill … don’t they?”
“Not anyone you’d miss,” Locan replied. “Like Connor said, they take out the garbage.”
Rachel frowned and squeezed his hand.
“C’mon kid, let’s get out of here.”
She had lain in his arms about an hour, but he could tell she was awake. The poor kid, he thought. What a pile of brick to be dumped on one girl.
Then she stirred and climbed on top of him, nestling his cock between her thighs. It didn’t take long for him to stiffen. She raised her hips and sheathed him with her warm, slick cunt. No words, just a swivel of her hips and a steady grind that increased in intensity. He just laid back and let her fuck him, let her take control. A roiling began in his balls; he didn’t want to release until she reached her climax.
He watched as her deep red nipples swirled in circles with each swivel of her body.
“Oh, God … Locan!”
Blue sparks danced around her shoulders and a flight of blue fireflies flittered around the bed.
“Racey! Sweetie, be careful!”
“It’s okay … I’m … in … control …”
Locan closed his eyes. “Oh, Jesus!”
Rachel shuddered; she’d soaked him. Blue electricity sparkled all around them, and then subsided.
She bent over, her breasts flattened against his chest. “Yum,” she cooed. “I want to eat you up.”
He traced his fingertips over her back, all was smooth, soft.
“Whacha looking for … fur?”
“Um …”
“It’s okay. I’m in control.”
“You can say that again.”
“But …”
“But what?”
“I thought you liked doggie sex.”
“Jesus, Racey.”
“I just want to lick you all over.”
“Yeah … sure … ohhhh … down, girl.”
He closed his eyes and surrendered to ecstasy.
She giggled.
Cardinal LeRocque hesitated a moment before he placed his hand on Rachel’s head and pronounced the final benediction as she was inducted into the company of the Palatinae. She looked up at him and smiled like a little girl who’d just received her first communion.
Jacoby stood with Locan. A dwarf, the top of his head barely reached Locan’s elbow.
“It took some time,” Jacoby said, “reassuring the cardinal.”
“Thanks.”
“I said you said she was okay, so she was okay with me.”
“Thanks again.”
“You lied, I lied.”
“She’ll be one of the best,” Locan said.
“I know that. But we both know what she is; she does too, I see. Well, her abilities will no doubt prove useful.”
“No doubt.”
“You fucked her, didn’t you?”
“Captain!”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
“I … I guess … it’s a lonely life, captain.”
“Well … I can’t blame you; but I won’t condone it. It was a blockhead thing to do. It seems to have turned out all right, but … it was a damned dangerous t
hing to do.”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, go congratulate her. It’ll be your last chance.”
Rachel ran into Locan’s embrace. “Thanks … for everything. We …”
“There can’t be any more ‘we’, Racey. They won’t let us stay together. In fact, they’ll try to arrange it so we never cross paths again.”
She pressed her forehead to his chest. “I can’t imagine hunting monsters without you, Locan.”
“You’ll be fine. I know you’ll be able to take on anything out there, except maybe a pooka.”
“A pooka.”
“A mischievous entity that gets into your head and makes you do embarrassing and humiliating things. There’s no defense, you just gotta let it get tired of you and move on. There was a guy …”
“Shhh.”
She clasped his head in her hands, stood on her toes and kissed his mouth, a wet, lingering kiss.
Ducks
Elizabeth Coldwell
That morning, I had almost thrown the ducks away. For six months, they had been sitting on the desk at the side of my Mac computer, on a three-inch mirrored square, beaks touching, just as Frances had proscribed. She had bought me the little wooden ducks in a shop in Covent Garden; they were good Feng Shui, she had told me as I had unwrapped them from their tissue paper covering, and if I put them in the correct place, they would bring a man into my life.
Frances was a sucker for all that kind of stuff: good luck charms; the I Ching; the horoscope column in the Daily Express; the gypsy fortune teller on Brighton Pier who’d allegedly read the palm of Kylie Minogue. She’d wandered round my flat, periodically consulting a book on Feng Shui, before telling me that having the dressing table mirror facing my bed would disrupt my sex life and the reason I was single was because the relationship corner of my home was down the toilet. Physically down the toilet. If she hadn’t been my best and oldest friend, I would have laughed. The reason I was single had nothing to do with badly placed mirrors and toilets: it was because since Tim had dumped me for his PA, nine months earlier, I had thrown myself completely into my work. It killed the pain, but spending most of your day photographing toast racks and standard lamps for interior design magazines didn’t give you a lot of opportunity to meet men. Admittedly, I did have an occasional sideline taking shots of male models for the sort of publication you wouldn’t let your granny read, but most of the men I photographed were either so vain or so dim they made a standard lamp seem a more attractive option.
So the ducks might as well go, for all the good they were doing. I’d reached down and picked up the drake, with its green and blue painted plumage and its beady little eye, and I’d held it over the waste paper basket. And then I’d remembered that Frances was coming over on Saturday night; I was cooking spaghetti carbonara and she was bringing the latest Brad Pitt film, courtesy of her local video shop. She loved to poke round the flat while I was busy in the kitchen, much as she always denied it, and she would notice instantly that the ducks had gone. I put the drake back in position, cosying up to his dowdy-looking mate, and decided I would dispose of them on Sunday.
I was in the kitchen, making myself a cup of coffee, when the phone rang. It was Izzy Russell, the art editor of Your New Home, one of the magazines which employed me on a regular basis.
She sounded breathless, slightly panicky, and I thought for a moment she was going to tell me my latest job had been canceled. “Hi, Lauren, just to let you know we’re having a small problem.”
“Nothing too serious, I hope,” I replied, thinking of the possible hole in my bank balance and the bills which were due at the end of the month.
“No, it’s just that I’m supposed to be sending you over the props for the tea table shoot, and we’ve gone way over our courier budget for the month. So one of the boys in the art department has agreed to bring you everything, as you’re on his route home. I hope that’s okay. Expect him about six.”
Crisis apparently averted, I went to retrieve my coffee mug from the kitchen, and turned my attention to my e-mail inbox. A couple of wannabe models had sent jpeg images of themselves, in answer to an ad I had placed online, and I gave them the once-over. One was a skinny, street urchin type, all gelled hair and sneering attitude. He looked barely old enough to be posing, and I decided to leave him for the gay magazines, whose readers had a decided taste for what appeared to be jailbait which I definitely didn’t share. The other had sent an illiterate e-mail and a couple of shots of nothing more than his erect dick, fat, pale and out of focus. I sighed, and deleted them. It was a while since I’d done a nude photo-shoot, and I had a sudden hankering to photograph flesh and blood, rather than bone china, but until a suitable model presented himself, I would have to stick to the commission Izzy had chosen to give me.
The entryphone buzzed, and I realized it was a little after six o’clock. I went to answer it. A deep, Northern voice enquired, “Lauren Lynn? I’m here with the stuff from Your New Home.”
“Brilliant,” I said. “Bring it up. I’m on the second floor.”
I stood at the open door to my flat, watching him struggle with the heavy rucksack he was carrying. I ushered him inside and helped him ease the thick straps off his shoulders so we could gently lower the rucksack to the floor.
“I’ll tell you, I was terrified of someone bumping into me on the Tube and breaking something,” he said, as he unzipped the big compartment at the top and started lifting out cups, plates and a teapot, all packaged in layers of bubble wrap. I watched him as he worked, unconsciously studying him with a photographer’s eye. Early twenties, tall and broad, with short, spiky dark hair, sleepy azure eyes and a dimple in one cheek which was revealed when he smiled. Which was often. It was a warm day outside, and that, coupled with the weight of the rucksack, had caused him to sweat; I could smell it slightly, but it was a spicy, sexy smell that was making its presence felt down low in my belly. He was cute, and fit, but the way he was dressed, in a tight, faded indigo T-shirt and baggy combat pants, suggested he didn’t seem to care too much about his appearance – or the effect it was having on me.
“Do you have to rush straight home, or can I get you a beer?” I asked. “I mean, you’ve been kind enough to bring all this over …”
“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” he said, and I went to hunt a couple of cans of ice-cold lager from the fridge. When I came back into the living room, he was standing in front of what had once been the chimney breast, looking at the photograph I keep hanging there. It’s an arty, black-and-white shot of a well-muscled man, his face in shadow, wearing nothing but a pair of torn denims. The fly is open enough to show the beginnings of his pubic bush, and his hand is reaching in to cradle his cock. Nothing is explicit; everything implied.
“That’s some photo you’ve got there,” he said, taking one of the cans from me. “Is it a Mapplethorpe?”
I shook my head, surprised by his knowledge of erotic photography. “Thanks for the compliment, but no. I took it.”
“Seriously? It’s fantastic,” he enthused. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a thing about other men or anything, but if I did, it would more than likely turn me on.”
“I do quite a bit of that sort of work.” I took a swig from my drink, hoping the lager would cool the fire that was being stoked in me, but standing next to Izzy’s gorgeous errand boy was having entirely the opposite effect. “Well, to be honest, not as much as I’d like. I do sets for Dare magazine now and again.”
“That’s the porn magazine for women, isn’t it? I met a guy at a party who used to be their designer. He told me some pretty wild stories about the stuff they print.”
“It’s good fun,” I replied, kicking off my shoes and curling up on the settee, “but they don’t buy many black-and-white sets, which is a shame. I’d love to take some photos for them which really concentrated on the muscles in a man’s body; emphasize how they move, and the power they contain.” I noticed him raise the can to his lips again, and saw th
e way his biceps pressed against the taut cotton of his T-shirt. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you have really good muscles in your arm. Do you work out at all?”
He shook his head. “I play football on Sunday mornings, and I’m helping a mate renovate his flat at the moment. That’s pretty physical work, but I’ve never been in a gym in my life.” He drained his can. “What are you saying, that you reckon I’m worth photographing?”
I reckoned far more than that, but I just smiled. “I think you have good muscles. It’s a start.”
“But I thought you use professional models?”
“Not always. To tell you the truth, I don’t always like using professionals. A lot of them are a pain in the arse. They think they’re doing me a favor by turning up for a shoot, they whinge, they whine and they have these terribly possessive girlfriends who want to claw my eyes out for daring to look at their man naked. So I put adverts in places, and I get guys who’ve never modeled before, but they have great bodies and they have this natural, unspoilt air about them. I’ve even shot guys I’ve met in the street before now.” A memory swam into my mind: a bloke I’d seen in a coffee shop on Regent Street, impossibly tall, Viking fair. He’d been a Danish student, disbelieving at first when I’d pressed my card into his hand, then flattered, and grateful for the money the shoot would bring. The photos had been among the best I’d taken, and Dare had used them as their centrefold. I sensed in the man sitting before me the same potential.
“So say I was modeling for you, how would you shoot me?” he asked.
“In the bedroom,” I replied without hesitation, the image forming in my mind so vivid I could almost touch it. “I’d have you lying in the crumpled sheets, looking like you’d just had the best sex of your life.” I could see it now: his limbs spread languidly on the bed, the rucked-up sheet nothing more than a strip of fabric across his groin, soon to be pulled away to reveal his hard cock in all its glory …
“Sounds good,” he said. “Why don’t we go for it?”
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