by Sasha Pruett
“What’s that look for?” He was up to something, she could see it.
“What look?”
“That look right there, like the cat that swallowed the canary and was reflecting on how good it was.”
“I guess I was in a way. I was thinking about us.”
“Something specific or just in general?”
“A bit of both actually.”
“Uh huh, could you be any more cryptic Drakon?”
“Yes.”
“Drakon!”
“What?”
“You infuriate me.” She leaned in and kissed him, “And I love you for it.” She leaned in for another and another.
“We’d better stop this or our lunch will get cold.”
“Who cares as long as you don’t.”
He groaned between kisses, her mouth was so inviting. She wasn’t making this easy. “You’re not making this easy you know?”
“I thought I was.”
“I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
“Who asked you to?”
“I did.” He pulled back brushing her cheek with his fingers, “You mean so much more to me than that, Calynn. Don’t get me wrong I want you so bad it hurts and a part of me, a large part wants nothing more than to shove every bit of food off this quilt and indulge in every part of you, but I want more than a brief moment on a hill with you. I don’t want to interrupt our time together with having to get dressed and trek back to a house full of eavesdroppers. I want to be able to lie next to you and hold you all night long. To watch the first rays of light shine on your skin, and know that I can stay with you in that bed for as long as we can stand each other.”
“Deal, but when that time comes.” She grabbed his shirt color with each hand and drew him into another hard kiss, “You’d better be ready, because I’m not letting go of you for a long, long time.”
“Count on it, my lady.” He breathed heavily, “But until that time maybe you could keep the temptation down a bit before I am forced to plunge into the nearest body of freezing water.”
Calynn cracked up at the thought, “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll try.” She said, making a show of backing away, sitting respectfully on her spot on the blanket.
“That’s all I ask. Now eat, you need to keep up your strength. You’re eating for two remember.”
“Yeah yeah, I know I know. I thought we were having a big dinner with your parents later?”
“That won’t be until nine tonight. Our schedules tend to differ from normal convention for obvious reasons and you need something now. Besides I can hear your stomach growling.”
“That’s your fault. It was perfectly happy being distracted by ‘other things’, then you had to put on the brakes and mention food at the same time.”
“Doesn’t matter whose fault it is the answer is before you, now eat. Or do you want my beautiful picnic in your honor to be ruined?”
“Oh that’s low, Drakon.”
“Yes, but I’ve found over the years that particular technique is quite effective.”
She smiled and shook her head as she shoved a fork full of vegetables in her mouth. Then it got quiet, not the good kind of quiet where there’s contentment in the air, but the brooding kind. The kind that meant something wasn’t quite right and things were about to get uncomfortable.
“Calynn? Do you resent… the pregnancy? I mean do you regret that you’re having our child?”
“What? No. Why would you ask that?”
“It’s the reaction you had to my urging you to eat. There seems to be something underlying it that made me wonder.”
Calynn stared into her plate trying to sort out her feelings and her answer. “Drakon, I… I don’t know, truthfully. I haven’t thought much about it or at least I’ve tried not to. Ever since I found out that I was pregnant I’ve been so focused on just surviving there hasn’t been much room for anything else. Not to mention that before you confirmed it the other day I didn’t know who the father was and that thought was terrifying.
Since then we’ve gotten engaged, I had to face your father, we took off for London and then got engaged again. With everything that’s been going on, until it settles down or I start knocking things over when I walk by I probably won’t be thinking about the baby much. I know that must sound harsh, but right now I feel pretty good physically. Other than being tired and few other little things, I feel fine so usually until someone brings it up I don’t think about it much.” Quiet, not even the creatures of nature seemed to be willing to speak up.
“Having a baby wasn’t in my short-term plans, long term yes, but it wasn’t something I was looking for anytime soon. I wasn’t even seriously dating anyone before all this. Had this been a normal relationship it would probably be the first thing on my mind when I woke up and the last thing before I went to bed, but things aren’t normal and I doubt they ever will be again. You have to give me time to adjust.”
He nodded and looked down at his own plate. He didn’t know what to expect or even what he wanted from her. Maybe he wanted this more than he realized.
“I do know one thing Drakon, I wouldn’t want this child to be anyone’s but yours.”
Silence. She continued to pick at her food, taking small bites of rice and chicken. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, would you even be marrying me if I wasn’t pregnant? If this baby had been one of your brothers’ would you have even bothered to help me let alone ask me to marry you?”
He couldn’t look at her. What would have happened if he had gone to her room that night and found that the child wasn’t his? What would he have done? His father was already determined by then that he would take her as a wife. That wouldn’t have changed. Would he have admitted his affair with her, to anyone? He considered all the scenarios, all the possibilities of where things might have gone, but every time he came to one conclusion.
“I’d be right were I’d want to be, right here, right now with you. Offering my hand, my life, my soul to you for as long as my life lasts because the truth is my heart has been yours since that first day. I love you Calynn, and nothing can or could have changed that. Not the child, not my brothers, nothing.” He’d leaned forward taking her chin in his hand and stared straight into her eyes that were brimming with tears. “Every part of me is yours.” His fingers trailed down the front of her neck to the dip in her clavicle where her sweater started. “Every part. Understand?”
She smiled, sighed, and nodded, dipping her head to rest on his hand. “You’d better knock that off before we both have to take that swim.”
He dropped his head and smiled, keeping his distance was going to be harder than he’d anticipated, “Can’t help it. I’m drawn to you.”
“Remember that when you’re taking your last lap in the pool.”
“Wouldn’t work, it’s heated. What happened to my willing partner in crime?”
“You corrupted her with your romantic intentions. That’s what you get for being so charming. You’ve managed to charm the pants right back on me. It’s your own fault.”
“So it is.” The tension was broken, at least the worry tension anyway and the two returned to their lunch. Giving each other knowing glances and playful, sometimes lustful smiles. They finished their meal and he packed away the dishes, then they stretched out on the pillows and blankets and listened to the songs of Ella, Sinatra, and Nat, satisfied just to be near each other.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Calynn, I wish to apologize, for earlier.”
“For what?”
“For questioning you about the baby. Now that I’ve had time to reflect on it I realize that with all my planning, research, spying and role playing, I haven’t thought much about the child either. It’s only since being given the entire responsibility for your welfare that I’ve begun to include it into my thoughts. We’re more alike than I think you realize, marriage, children, none of that was in any of my long-term plans let alone short term
. I was being groomed as adviser to the head of the House of Drake, first to my father then to Rais. My intentions were to do my duty by the family and spend as little time in their presence as possible, but now, having you here and knowing that my life doesn’t have to be filled with darkness and duty I find an excitement that I haven’t felt for over a century.
Next to you, this child, our child is the best thing that’s ever happened in my life and I could never regret or resent a second of it. It will have an amazing mother and I’ll fight every day to be the husband and father you both deserve. It’s okay if you haven’t thought on it much. You were right. You need time to adjust and there’ll be plenty of time after the wedding, when we’re preparing the nursery, to go crazy and I’ll be right there to hold you close and calm your fears.”
“Are you trying to make me cry, because you’re doing a very good job of it? How is it you always know just what to say?”
“I’ve been around a while. Comes with the territory.”
“Not always. Your brothers could use some of that wisdom.”
“My brothers could use a lot of things.”
She shivered, “Do they all know now, about us?”
“Probably, all but Rais that is. My father feels that he should be left to concentrate on his duties to the family for now and not informed until closer to the date of the ceremony.”
“In other words, keep him in the dark so he can’t interfere.”
“Exactly.”
“Now, how does this whole wedding ceremony thing work; for your kind anyway?”
“That’s a good question, I’m not entirely sure about all the particulars. I have only been to one celebration and that was well over a hundred years ago. Given our extended marrying age it doesn’t come up that often and it differs for those of the larger houses. Being an heir of the House of Drake will change things and there are things that will have to be addressed because of our… unique situation.”
“In English Drakon. I’m not two hundred years old.”
“My apologies, the actual ceremony will be conducted by my father since he is the head of the family and the house. Anytime someone in the House of Drake that is of rank is joined he is the one to officiate. Him or Rais now that he’s beginning to take over some of the duties of the clan head. Only those of our house will be there since it’s considered a privileged and sacred event, afterwards there is a large celebration where we’ll be presented by my father to the invited guests. It’s very similar in some ways to your reception event held after the ceremony, only…”
“Only what?”
“For our kind it can be far more sinister. To put it as succinctly and delicately as I can, part of our tradition is to offer a sacrifice.”
“A human sacrifice?”
He nodded, “Mostly it’s another way to justify more slayings. The larger the family the larger the sacrifice. I plan to speak to my father about this before dinner tonight. The last thing I want is for you to see a bunch of intoxicated, blood lust filled clansmen running around indulging in every kind of perversion you can imagine.”
“Will he stop the sacrifice?”
“No, that would be going too far. No one is supposed to know that you’re human. Refraining from the traditional nuptial blessing sacrifice would be too suspicious, but I have a plan that I believe will help. While I can’t stop them, I can adjust them.”
“What do you mean, ‘adjust them’?”
“To begin with I fully intend to be long gone with you to the villa in Switzerland before the party begins to turn lethal, something that I’m sure my father will side with me on. The sooner we can get you out of there the less time there’ll be for anyone to happen upon your humanity. Second, I’m petitioning him to only provide justice sacrifices.”
“Justice sacrifices? What’s that?”
“Since the early eighteen-hundreds it’s been a growing trend within the clans that, well to put it simply, some of us have grown to like humans. Some of us have grown to love them.” He smiled. “They’ve turned our race into a fairy tale, a scary bedtime story and of late a sort of dark romantic figure. Many of our kind has not only enjoyed it, but benefitted from it. There’s somewhat of a growing underground understanding within the clans when it comes to dealing with humans and our need of them. Naturally the elders stick with tradition and would probably disown their offspring for betraying it, but many of the lower ranks have developed more of a symbiotic relationship with humans.
They’ve become so enamored with our culture, regardless of most of their ideas being based on pure fiction that they willingly donate blood. Obviously, there are those that just like to pretend they’re us and consume blood on their own, but we blend in so well it’s difficult to tell the real clans from the pretenders. There are also others who have taken the stance that since now we’re no longer being hunted as monsters that to kill is just a waste. It’s quite popular for our kind to work in the medical field and I can guarantee you one of us works in every blood bank and depository in the world.
This is generally overlooked by the clan heads, but the ideal of justice sacrifices has recently been accepted by them. It started as a way to punish those humans that inflicted damage or committed crimes against the clans and anyone within their house including their servants. Using them as the sacrifice as their punishment, it soon extended to the servants’ families outside of the clans and as things go we sort of became a type of vigilante. There are so many dark souls out there that prey on human life, and yes, I realize how that sounds. It is very hypocritical, but not everyone of our kind has that extreme kind of bloodlust anymore. Many of our race now seek to protect human life and when the authorities are unable to deliver justice we step in. We have a need, they have a need and so there you go. One more criminal off the streets and one less innocent person is sacrificed.”
“Justice sacrifice.”
“Precisely.”
“And you think your father will go for that, being the head of a clan and all?”
“Normally no. If this was Rais’ wedding absolutely not, but this isn’t his ceremony it’s ours and there will be representatives from all of the clans in attendance. Some of which have a mind for leniency on the sacrifice traditions. I’ll simply put it to my father as a matter of your human sensibilities, your delicate condition, and political diplomacy. That should do it.”
“And all the… sacrifices, they’d be…”
“Men and women caught in the act of a vicious crime against another. Murderers, rapists, child molesters, drug pushers and the like. Is that acceptable?”
“Considering the alternative, yes.”
“I’m sorry Calynn. If I had complete control over this there would never be another hunt in this house again, but I can’t change this. I can’t even try.”
“I know, it’s okay. I mean it’s not okay; not by a long shot, but I understand. You’re doing everything you can and more and I appreciate it, but how are your parents planning on keeping everyone from finding out that I’m human. Can’t your kind tell us apart?”
“A mile away, but there are a few tricks. Physically we’re identical, well almost identical. The biggest indicator of a human presence is the smell.”
“What we stink or something?”
“On the contrary. We can smell your blood and since…”
“Oh I get it, we smell like a steak dinner.”
“You could put it like that.”
“Perfect, a room full of dozens of… what are you exactly anyway Drakon, your kind I mean?”
“We’re… different.”
“That’s obvious, and we’ve had this conversation before. Seriously what are you?”
“The name of our kind has been lost somewhere along the way, swallowed up by superstitions and human names for us. Names in every language, from every culture, from every corner of the world. None of them the right name though.”
“You mean like V...”
“Don’t say it, not that w
ord please. It’s an insult.” He cut her off, every cell in his body bristling.
“Okay, but that’s what we’re talking about here isn’t it?”
“In the basest sense.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to release his tension. He didn’t want her feeling it was about her. She had every right to ask and be answered.
“And I’ll be in a room full of… your kind smelling like the afternoon buffet, very reassuring.”
He laughed, tension forgotten, “If you look at it that way yes, but like I said there are tricks.”
“Like what? I don’t think there’s enough deodorant or perfume in the world that’ll help me.”
“Now there you’re wrong, there are ways of masking the scent of a human. It’s turned into quite an inside joke of ours. Back in the earlier centuries humans had all sorts of theories on how to protect themselves from us. Most of them were completely ridiculous, but occasionally, they would hit on something that actually worked. For instance, certain flowers and plants that held particular chemical compounds could mask their scent and they could move about somewhat unnoticed by us, until they started wearing these flowers as charms to ward us off that is. That was a dead giveaway, wearing flowers on their lapels and such, but the idea caught on for fashion and now it’s a tradition to wear a boutonniere and carry a bouquet of flowers down the aisle.”
“I didn’t realize I would be getting a history lesson.”
“You asked, now be quiet and learn my dear. It’s been incorporated within our own race to warn that humans are present at certain mixed events. Many well-known individuals of our kind, because of their popular status in the media, hold human ceremonies. The presence of certain flowers alert us to behave in the presence of mixed company. When you hear about a famous couple eloping to some hidden place for a private ceremony you can lay money that they’re not actually human after all. A little flower based perfume with rose oil, bouquets of carefully selected flowers with hidden oils and you won’t be noticed as anything other than the beautiful bride that you are. Not to mention that the room will be filled with human servants. Though yes, they do have a different odor due to the serums effect, any whiff of humanness can easily be explained by them.