“Up with you,” Rans prodded, looking bleary-eyed as only a vampire at seven a.m. could. “Shower, dress, eat something. We’re going out.”
I tried to blink the grit out from under my eyelids. “Huh? But lunch isn’t for hours yet…?”
“It’s not. But first, I’m taking you to see what state your house is in,” he explained, and my stomach sank a little further.
“Oh.”
Rans only raised an eyebrow. “Might as well get as much emotional trauma as possible out of the way in one day. You’re going to be miserable, but there’s no reason you can’t be productive at the same time.”
He had a point. I muttered something semi-intelligible and stumbled off to use Guthrie’s spectacular guest bathroom. An hour later, I was clinging to Rans’ back as his black Triumph sped through traffic. He’d unearthed a helmet from somewhere for me. That—combined with the fact that we weren’t being pursued by a carload of pissed-off Fae—meant the experience was a lot less hair-raising than my first ride with him had been.
Rans brought the bike to a sedate halt in the driveway of my little house and deployed the kickstand. I eyed the scratches and dents on the front door with trepidation. It looked like the police had broken in the front rather than bothering to try the back door first.
“You really think it’s safe for me to be here?” I asked, a hint of skepticism creeping into my tone.
He shrugged. “Frankly, luv, I think you’re going to have to stand up and stake a claim on your life, unless you want to end up hiding in the shadows from now until doomsday. The Fae Court agreed to let you go, and any Fae who came at you now would be defying that order.”
I stilled as I considered the idea that I might be safe. Could I somehow step back into my old life?
But, no.
As Rans had said at the airport, all this meant was that the terms of engagement had changed. I didn’t know yet how that was likely to manifest, but maybe it was a moot point. I wasn’t sure I could go back to my old life, knowing what I now knew about myself and the world around me. Or perhaps more to the point, the worlds around me.
I stepped off the bike.
Rans followed. Even if I hadn’t lost my house key long ago, the front door looked like it had been nailed shut with a couple of boards. But this entire farce had begun with a broken patio door lock. I was willing to bet that St. Louis’ finest hadn’t gone out of their way to repair it after rifling through my belongings. And, indeed, the back door slid open on its tracks with an unpleasant grinding noise.
The interior was on the bad end of what I had mentally prepared myself for. Furniture lay upended; some of it broken. My possessions were scattered randomly on the floor in such volume that it was clear they’d emptied every shelf and drawer in the place. I couldn’t stop a small noise of distress from sneaking out.
Rans surveyed the carnage and shook his head in disgust. “Vicious twats,” he muttered. “Right, then. We’ve got about three hours before we need to leave and meet Guthrie. What do you want to focus on this morning?”
I tried to organize my thoughts, which were in roughly the same shape as my living room. “Um... fix the lock. See if some of my clothing is salvageable. And… look for important papers, I guess? Though I’ve been using a fake identity more than my real one lately.”
He nodded. “That all sounds reasonable. Is there a hardware store nearby?”
For the next three hours, we worked in companionable silence. Rans replaced the lock on the patio door—which only seemed fair, since he’d been the one to break it. Meanwhile, I sorted through the detritus of my former life, swallowing a fresh stab of grief whenever I stumbled across something with sentimental value related to my mother.
I’d had a small collection of photos, some in frames and some not. Many were torn, but I gathered the pieces up carefully and put them in a box to deal with later. A couple of them were still intact behind the broken glass of their frames. Those, I carefully stowed in an old backpack I’d unearthed from the mess in my bedroom. I also packed some additional clothing that had been strewn around the floor.
As far as I could tell, all of my important papers and documents had been taken away. The realization twisted something inside me unpleasantly. It was just so… intrusive. I felt like I’d barely made a dent in the chaos when eleven-thirty rolled around and we left, locking up behind ourselves.
“I’d worry about whether they used my bank statements to close my account or put it on hold, or something,” I tried to quip. “Only it probably had more cobwebs than money in it to start with.”
Rans clasped my shoulder as he went around me to mount the bike. “If it’s any consolation, money causes as many problems as it solves.”
I let out an indelicate snort as I strapped on my helmet. “Sounds like a saying coined by a rich person.”
“Probably,” he agreed, as I settled the backpack across my shoulders and got on behind him. The roar of the engine cut off anything else I might have wanted to say.
* * *
On any other day, I would have enjoyed lunch. People went to Blueberry Hill for the atmosphere more than anything else. The place was something of an institution in St. Louis, and I got the impression Guthrie was a regular. Over the five decades since it had opened, the restaurant had become a sort of pop culture museum, with a jukebox collection, taxidermy on the walls, and dozens of display cases full of everything from old music memorabilia to Pez dispensers.
It didn’t hurt that the burgers and fries were pretty good, too.
Guthrie and I ate and chatted about the local music scene, while Rans pretended to sip a cherry cola. Despite the aura of old sadness that hung over him like a cloud, I liked Guthrie. He was smart, interesting, and had a dry sense of humor that he wasn’t afraid to aim in Rans’ direction as required. All in all, it was a nice way to kill ninety minutes of a day that I desperately wanted to be over. Guthrie eventually excused himself to head to the airport for his business trip, leaving us alone.
“Back to my house for more cleanup?” I asked, dreading the idea.
Rans shook his head. “Not today. That’s a multi-day job no matter how you look at it, for one thing. Since I’m guessing you won’t let me pay someone else to do it for you, we’ll at least need to bring along some bags for the refuse, and rent a lorry to haul the broken furniture to the dump.”
“Lorry?” I asked, wracking my brain for the English-to-American translation.
“A truck, you American Luddite,” he clarified. “For now, we’re going back to the penthouse. I’ve something specific in mind for this afternoon.”
‘Something specific’ turned out to be code for utilizing Guthrie’s home gym for what Rans generously labeled training. From my perspective, it felt more like being alternately pummeled by a stronger, more experienced opponent, and forced to the edge of my endurance on a succession of treadmills, ellipticals, and weight machines.
“This is never going to work,” I complained as we squared off, well aware of how ridiculous the idea of me trying to fight off Fae with a sword or dagger was. For Christ’s sake, I was a waitress.
“Not with that attitude, it won’t,” Rans agreed, and swept my legs out from under me almost casually. “But as long as you refuse to utilize your other skills in a fight...”
I gritted my teeth, and tried for the hundredth time to implement the countermove he was attempting to teach me. Shock of shocks, it didn’t work.
When I glanced up to find the sky dark beyond the wall of windows, I was surprised. If the idea had been to distract me from my worries, the hours of abuse masquerading as a workout had done its job, I supposed.
“What time is it?” I asked in a daze.
Rans glanced outside as well. “Time for a shower, followed by a soak in the hot tub. I expect the fireworks will be kicking off soon. Seems like as good a place as any to watch from, and your muscles will thank you tomorrow.”
I frowned at him. “But… I didn’t think to lo
ok for my swimsuit when we were at the house. I don’t have anything to wear.”
His slow blink was about as innocent as a hunting lion’s. “And your point is…?”
I blinked back. “Um, never mind. I’ll just go take that shower now.”
Half an hour later, I was naked in a rooftop Jacuzzi, leaning back in the arms of an equally naked vampire. My robe lay abandoned on a chair nearby, snuggled up to the loose pair of track pants Rans had been wearing. Fireworks lit the sky, the thunderous explosions of sound muffled by the distance separating us from the riverfront.
Rans had been right on at least one count—my muscles were thanking me already for the massaging jets and soothing heat of the water. I let my head loll back against his shoulder, aware of the hard length pressed to my back and the thread of sexual energy flowing from his body to mine. He smoothed my hair back from my temple as a fresh starburst of purple and white exploded in the sky.
“Try something for me,” he murmured against the shell of my ear.
I made a questioning noise. Exhaustion was starting to overcome my ennui surrounding this anniversary, but his words kindled a spark of curiosity.
His erection nudged my ass, sending a new tingle through me. “I can’t be around you like this without wanting to shag you, luv,” he said. “But I want you to see if you can isolate the feeling of my animus flowing toward you.”
“I can,” I said lazily. “I’ve been able to do that for a while now. Why?”
“Because I want to see if you can block the flow,” he said. “Just temporarily, mind.”
I straightened enough that I could crane around to look at him, not liking that request. “Again—why?”
He eased me back to rest against him as I had been doing before. “Because cultivating that ability will be important for something else I have planned in the next few days. This is just a test run… dipping your toe in the hot tub, as it were. We’re not shagging right now. I’m hard for you—that’s all. It’s a trickle, not a blast from a fire hose. It shouldn’t be that difficult for you to block me out.”
“So, you want me to stick my finger in the hole like the little Dutch boy and his dike?” I grumbled.
He snorted. “Are you trying to be provocative?”
I elbowed him in the ribs, feeling how the flow of his energy flickered as he absorbed the blow with a muffled oof.
“Vixen,” he grumbled. “How did you know I like it rough?”
“Lucky guess,” I retorted in my most withering tone. “Are you going to tell me why you want me to do this?”
“For now, I’m just interested to see how much control you have over it,” was all he said.
Even though the request still made me mildly uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t articulate, now I was curious, too. I wriggled my ass against his dick, zeroing in on the sensation—trying to determine where it originated and how it flowed into me.
When I concentrated, I could feel warmth growing in the same chakra Caspian had instructed his magical lackey to attack when I’d been his prisoner in Dhuinne. That made sense, I supposed, though it also reminded me of things I really didn’t want to think about on today of all days.
Or... maybe those awful hours of torture were exactly what I should be thinking about. Somehow, my magic had protected itself from the Fae’s attack. The problem was, Rans’ animus wasn’t a threat to me. Quite the opposite. It was nourishment. Support. My succubus nature didn’t want to shut it out.
“You’re over-thinking this, aren’t you?” Rans asked, flexing his hips.
I sighed. “Probably. I’m not sure how to convince my body it doesn’t want what you’re offering.”
He paused for a moment. I could almost hear the gears turning inside his head.
“All right,” he said eventually. “Let’s reframe it, then. We’re not lazing in a hot tub, enjoying the celebration of your uppity little colony’s independence. We’re someplace else. I’m in danger. I can’t afford to leak any of my power out through my cock—I need to keep it all for myself.”
Almost despite myself, I pictured Rans in Caspian’s hands, fighting for his life. Something inside me jerked painfully, and the flow of animus cut off like a valve had been shut. My heart thudded with sudden adrenaline.
“Thought so,” he murmured. “Although it might be helpful if you continued breathing.”
Air exited my lungs in an ugly rasp. I dragged in a fresh lungful to replace it and swallowed hard. “You… felt that?” I asked, my voice a croak.
“Of course I did.” His hand slid up to rest between my breasts, over my pounding heartbeat. “Now we’ll just have to work on triggering the mechanism without triggering a panic attack at the same time.”
“This isn’t a panic attack,” I whispered, as I focused on my heart rate and breathing, willing them back to normal. Unfortunately, as soon as the spike of adrenaline faded, I felt the connection between us open again. It was reduced, true—but that seemed to be more a case of Rans’ sexual desire having waned in the face of my mini-freakout session than by any control I was exerting on the process.
“Not to worry, luv,” he said easily. “It’s clear you can control it. You’ll just need more practice to separate the mechanism of that control from the emotion surrounding it.”
“Hmph. Sounds like almost as much fun as letting you repeatedly kick my ass while trying to teach me self-defense,” I managed.
“Oh, I expect we can make it marginally more enjoyable than that,” he promised in low tones, his hand never moving from its reassuring place over my heart.
Above us, fireworks painted the sky in a red, white, and blue grand finale.
SIX
THE NEXT SEVERAL days fell into a sort of pattern, though it wasn’t one I ever expected to experience in my life. No… rather than dragging myself out of bed to go work a waitressing shift and put in my volunteer hours, I was now splitting my time between cleaning up the ruin of my house, having increasingly kinky sex with a vampire while lounging around a gazillionaire’s penthouse suite, and training to become Buffy the Freakin’ Faerie Slayer.
It was safe to say I was making forward progress in three of those four arenas. For now, though, Buffy appeared to be safe from any meaningful competition on my end.
Rans hadn’t let up in his obsession to teach me to control the flow of animus I drew from him, and that was his excuse for the extent to which the two of us had been getting our freak on during the past few days. I hadn’t been warned ahead of time, but today was apparently finals day for my unofficial ‘Animus Control 101’ course.
All of which explained why I was currently drooling into Rans’ pubic hair, trying to get him all the way down my throat while simultaneously rubbing two fingers over his prostate in a steady rhythm. And, yeah, okay—it might not have been the most dignified position to be in. But, damn. It had taken me less than twenty-four hours to become the prostate gland’s number-one fangirl.
“Really?” I’d asked yesterday, not exactly repulsed by the idea—just… unsure.
But Rans only smirked, one eyebrow arched in challenge. “I did mention that vampires don’t harbor microbes, yes? If squeamishness is the issue, I can assure you that those pipes haven’t been used for their intended purpose in centuries, Zorah.” His lips twitched. “And for the record, you can thank me later.”
In actuality, I’d had to wait until much later to thank him. At his insistence, I’d been making no attempt to stop myself siphoning sexual energy from him, and the goddamned inconsiderate bastard passed out on me after climaxing six times over the course of forty-five minutes.
I spent a panicked few seconds convinced I’d just killed the last surviving vampire with sex, thereby committing unintentional murder-suicide via the life bond. Fortunately, it then occurred to me to grab a knife from the kitchen and slash it across my palm, prying his mouth open to let some of my blood drip onto his tongue. I cursed him up one side and down the other until he eventually came around wit
h a groan.
“You could have warned me!” I’d yelled, shoving him in the shoulder and leaving a smear of blood on his pale skin.
He just blinked up at me with unfocused blue eyes. “Blimey, luv. Sorry about that. Are you sure that was your first time? Seven hundred years, and I’m fairly certain that was a new record.”
Caught between relief and fury, I’d made an incoherent noise of frustration and stormed out of the room, leaving him to sleep it off. That was the moment I realized that I was practically buzzing with stolen energy. My palm tingled, and when I looked down at it, I found the ugly cut scabbed over as though the injury had happened days before, rather than minutes.
I was overcome with the need to move… to do something. I ended up running five miles on the treadmill, and when that wasn’t enough, I swam another two miles in the swim spa. In both cases, I knocked more than thirty percent off my previous best speed, yet the exertion had barely taken the edge off. In the end, I liberated a bottle of something dusty and expensive-looking from Guthrie’s wine rack and drank until I no longer felt like I had live voltage running through my veins instead of blood.
Rans stumbled into the living room some considerable amount of time later to find me passive-aggressively engaged in a Twilight movie marathon—mostly as a way to distract myself from my burning urge to alphabetize Guthrie’s sock drawers by color in a fit of raging, animus-driven OCD.
“The second film was always my favorite,” he’d said, and then utterly failed to deflect the couch cushion I hurled at his head.
I was still pissed at him, but the incident had driven home a few different points. Firstly, I had no friggin’ clue what my real power capacity was. Secondly, Rans hadn’t been wrong about the kind of advantage my succubus abilities could potentially be in a fight with a more powerful opponent—there was little question that if I’d sparred with him in our present states, the outcome would be considerably different than it had been up until now. And thirdly, the prostate gland was actually pretty fucking awesome, in a ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ kind of way.
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