by Lauren Dane
“Darling. I’m a monster too. Remember? That’s why you’re perfect for me. I love you not because you’re the daughter of The First. I love you because you survived. You rose above it. My phoenix.”
“Love is fucked up.”
Clive had ceased to take her seriously when she said things like that. She might mean them at that moment, but Rowan, while she guarded against vulnerability with all her might, loved him with the same intensity she did everything else. And with her own unique take.
He sat and she joined him with a wary look.
“There’s a great deal of room right here in my lap.”
“Should I tell you what I want for Christmas?”
He patted his thigh. “Come over here and let me show you.”
Chuckling, she sat astride his body, knees tucked against his thighs. The weight of her was just right. Her scent—he moved closer to breathe her in—spicy. Oranges and cloves.
Like home.
He’d thought long and hard about what sort of gesture would satisfy any lingering questions regarding his relationship status. About protecting her as much as he could while he did it.
“During the Joint Tribunal meeting I publically claimed you to the other Scions. In front of Enyo and Victoriana. I said I’d draw blood to protect you because you were mine. That should be enough. It is enough, actually. The problem is more of whether or not another Vampire at my level believes you’re also as committed to me as I to you.”
She kissed him quickly. “So Warren’s calling me a liar or he’s saying you’re too weak to keep me?”
Already breaking the problem down so she could solve it.
“You do know how much I adore your mind. So clever. You’re an independent woman. You make your own rules and there’s an element of you openly acknowledging you’re mine.”
She growled. “I want to openly acknowledge your being mine. How come we’re not talking about that? Also, Warren is a tool.”
Clive agreed. But if he couldn’t have Rowan he’d be sad and petty too, he supposed.
“It’s clear I’m yours.” Scions didn’t go declaring their affections for someone the way he had so openly unless it was genuine and permanent. And he quite enjoyed how worked up she got at the idea of people not knowing he was claimed.
“How come you’re clear and I’m not?”
“I’m a Vampire and our rules are pretty defined on such things. You should know this. Since the last instance of Warren crossing the line—after I’d spoken to him about it—I’ve been thinking about what it would take. About what to do that would be effective and still protect your privacy as much as I can.” No need to share with her that they’d had a physical altercation over it more than once.
“One thing I’d been planning for a while but it dovetails with the next part so be patient. Would you consider wearing a piece of jewelry bearing my crest? Some Vampires have marks, like your mark of service, but I understand why that’s not possible.” He would never ask that of her. The mark she bore on her wrist identified her as a protected member of a Vampire household. It said she owed fealty and it was also a warning to anyone not to harm or otherwise interfere with that human.
He knew she saw it as being owned. And it was true. The mark was a mark of ownership.
The Hunter’s mark was also a stamp of fealty in a sense. He didn’t want her to feel shackled by their relationship in any way.
“Like a fox or bagpipes or whatever it is you guys put on your crest with diamonds around it?”
He sniffed, affronted. “I have taste, Rowan.” He hesitated and then pulled a ring from his pocket. “Don’t panic.” He held it up. “A necklace might get caught when you were fighting and choke you. A bracelet might impede your movement when you use your blade. You don’t wear earrings very often. I want you to wear it, not for Warren, but because it means something to me that you would.”
She nodded her head slowly. “Okay. Okay.” She blew out a breath and he slid it on her finger. “I like it. I’m glad it doesn’t have a gigantic diamond in it, or a fox or bagpipes.”
Clive was about to finally lose his patience and explain bagpipes were Scottish and he wasn’t, when she just stared at her hand and the ring, awe in her eyes.
“I’d only break it or lose the stone.” She traced over the lines in the platinum band shot with threads of amber. “Like fire.”
“Yes. The full crest has a dragon breathing flames.” Not a fox to be found.
Her eyes widened. “Really? How did I not know that?” She grinned. “That’s amazing. And the way you brought the elements of that into this design and still made it something I’d love? Thank you, Clive. Yes, I’ll wear the ring.”
He kissed her. “I’m glad you like it.” And he was. Giddily so. Hopefully this trend could continue as he told her the rest.
“Well.”
She started to laugh. “You’re blushing. As hot as that makes me, I’m not jerking you off in public either.”
A horrified guffaw came from deep in his belly and he was helpless to keep it from escaping. “See what you do to me? The deterioration of my manners is marked.”
She shrugged. “It’s on my warning label I’m sure. But I do take some solace in your reaction to that. So you don’t need me to sex you up in front of an audience. Why are you hesitating?”
“If I take you right now. Here in this room, and we go back out to the salon where they’re all waiting and you’re wearing that ring and...”
“If I smell like a lady who was just rogered by a Scion we’re good?”
He sighed.
She put a hand on her hip, brows raised. “Oh I’m supposed to say the scent of your lovemaking or something like that? You’re with the wrong female if so.”
To shut her up—and because he loved her taste—he stretched up to take her mouth in a kiss.
She arched as she ground herself against his cock. His need for her—always there just waiting for the opportunity to touch—swelled as he loosed it, let it free.
A rush of magic and power filled the space, enough that Clive knew everyone on that plane would have felt it.
He smiled against her lips.
“You’re cocky,” she murmured as she got her pants unbuttoned and unzipped.
“I’m about to be inside you. If a man wasn’t cocky over that achievement, he’s not much of a man.”
“You’re especially gifted with saying things that expedite that.”
“I haven’t lived centuries without learning a few things.” He yanked at her pants and they overbalanced, ending up on the floor, the hum of the engines vibrating through them both.
She snarled, but not in anger. He managed to get his trousers open but the damnable woman didn’t want to wait for foreplay, she grabbed his cock and squeezed just right.
He groaned.
“Give it to me,” Rowan urged.
“You’re so bossy.”
“You know it. Demanding too. So get to it.”
“I’m a gentleman. I’m not just going to—” He lost his words as she rolled them so he was on his back and in one more movement, sank down on him. The heat of her body arced up his spine as his back bowed.
He sputtered a curse and she laughed. “Fuck being a gentleman. You’re not when your cock is out so let’s stop pretending.”
Clive bucked enough to stand, spinning to back her against the windows. “A gentleman always makes sure his partner is ready before he fucks him or her.”
She grinned. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But in case it escaped your notice, I’m ready.”
He thrust deep over and over for some time before he replied. “Yes, yes you are.”
Her nails dug in at his shoulders as he kept her pinned. The icy cool of the windows and wall at her back only see
med to make her hyper aware.
Rowan didn’t care if she was supposed to be embarrassed or worried about getting caught. She wanted Clive pretty much all the time, and this? This Clive—hot, ready and driven—melted her butter. That he wanted her so much he lost all that smooth veneer and got down, teeth bared, the muscles in his neck and forearms strained as he sought his release? Damn.
The amber threads in her ring caught the light and she looked for panic and found none. The ring didn’t make her any more in love with Clive, though it was a beautiful gift. It didn’t make their relationship any more real.
No, that ring was a symbol. It was roots. She didn’t have a lot of roots, which made it easy to move around when and wherever she wanted. But at the same time, without roots you floated around.
It was...nice.
For all their bickering, he was her safe place. And that meant more to her than she wanted to contemplate right then.
One handed—the showoff—he held her up while the other hand found its way between them so he could get to her clit. He bit her too, hard enough that she’d feel it for hours, not so hard he drew blood.
He did it over and over. Nips, some so hard it brought tears to her eyes, but the pain warmed into something else. When she came so hard she cracked her head against the window behind her, the pain seemed to amplify the pleasure until she yelled out so loud she was sure everyone heard it. And she didn’t care.
Clive spoke in her ear. Dirty stuff that only sounded even sexier because it was in French. He needed her more than his breath. That wasn’t dirty, just sweet and tender. All the good stuff about how hot and tight she was nearly burned her skin.
One, two more thrusts and he stayed deep, hips jutted forward as he came, his focus on her so intense his emotions filtered through to her. She smiled because what else could a woman do when someone like Clive felt that way after being with her? He left her helpless against the way he saw her.
He helped her stand, bending to grab her clothes.
“I may have given you a love bite.” He looked at her neck and colored slightly. “Or three.”
She decided to find it funny. Why not? The entire situation was so ridiculous all she could do was laugh. “I’ll heal by the time we get to Venice.”
The look he gave her made her think about grabbing him and tossing him to the couchette so she could go at him again.
Then he smiled. That smug Scion face she used to get so mad at. Maybe because she found it hot even when she hated him.
“Careful now, Hunter. You go looking at me that way and we’ll never leave this room.”
Though she’d just been thinking the same thing, she didn’t say it. “Wouldn’t want to miss out on letting Warren sniff your jizz on me.”
His lip curled at the word jizz and it made her snicker and resolve to use it again.
He pulled himself together as she re-braided her hair and they headed back out to the salon where she could hear the tap of a laptop’s keyboard and the steady murmur of a phone call.
David’s eyebrows rose for a brief moment but he quickly recovered and went back to his screen.
Rowan’s phone buzzed and she looked at the screen. It was Susan. “I need to take this.” She walked past Warren, letting him get a sniff and tried not to roll her eyes at how stupid the whole thing was.
“Susan, it’s good to hear from you.” Rowan paused a ways down the hall, pausing outside the room she’d been in with Clive so she could hear what was going on in both places.
“Hello, sweetheart. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I’ve had a bit of a time trying to get off the grid so to speak.” The sound of Susan’s voice made Rowan feel better even if she wasn’t pleased with what she was hearing.
“You’re being watched?”
“Before I get to that, let me apologize for the way I brought up David going with you on this hunt. It’s our belief—mine and Rex’s—that David was to be a target while you were away. I had only learned of it right before our call started so I couldn’t warn you. I didn’t know if he was with you or not and I felt if he wasn’t I didn’t want to call attention to his being unprotected.”
She’d gone cold. Very. Cold. “My David a target? Who would dare?” Even as she asked, she knew it was Roth and his little wing of Hunter Corp.
“Who do you think?”
Well, Enyo wasn’t the only being she had to kill then. No one attacked David. Not who’d be living to tell about it. He was hers to protect and she took that oath very seriously. Also, she didn’t like Roth Wesslyian so it wasn’t a chore to be angry at him.
Though he was protected back in Las Vegas. No one else had to know about it, but she and Brigid had made a deal with the Dust Devils. Carey and David were under their protection when Rowan was away.
“Okay then. I’ll put that on my to-do list.” Maybe she’d swing by London on her way back home. Clive had been at her to meet his parents, which meant she’d have to do that too, so she could do it at the same time and tick off some more boxes on that list.
As long as she didn’t have to do this weird sex smell thing with them. Rowan had her limits.
“I need to courier you and Rex something, Susan. There are things you both need to know. Things I believe Roth did know and has not shared. I don’t want to send them to the office or your townhouse.” Rowan explained about the Blood Front’s activity level and what they’d found out after interrogation.
“How soon can you get the file to me?”
“It’s in London now with one of my contacts. A relative of my tech guy brought it over. Just tell me when and where and I’ll get him there within an hour.”
“There’s a bookshop down the road. On New Cavendish Street. Give me three hours.”
“What are you going to do?” Susan had been at Hunter Corp. since the age of nineteen. She’d met Rex the next year when he joined at twenty-three. They’d been a very important part of Hunter Corp. governance and direction. This sort of thing had to be upsetting for them for all sorts of reasons.
“We need to see how deep this rot goes. If he’s playing at politics, or if he’s laying the groundwork for a coup and a declaration of war. Either way, it needs to be called out and ended. How are you through all this?”
“I warned you all Roth was up to something. He tried to blame all his behavior on the spell used against him, but this information just proves he’s been actively undermining the Treaty and Hunter Corp.’s stated goals. Long before he showed up at the Keep and certainly since he returned. I don’t like that I can’t count on Hunter Corp. in the field because I can’t trust everyone.”
Deep inside something began to fray.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I do know how you feel. Rex and I are worried for you, of course. But we also have every confidence you’ll find this creature and cut her down. If you need backup, call my office. I can’t promise Roth or his people aren’t listening, but I can promise everyone in my direct employ is trustworthy.”
Rowan sighed. “All right. We’re on the way to Venice now.” She nearly shared her fear that Theo was losing his shit. Before she and Theo had reconciled, it would have been natural for her to talk to Susan. Bounce ideas off her. But now it felt like she was betraying a confidence and putting Theo at risk.
“The palazzo has been prepared and staffed for your visit but if I were you I would find myself alternate accommodations. Let this leak of ours waste some time looking for you.”
Rowan had already come to that conclusion but hearing it from Susan just underlined that it was the right choice. There was no way she’d risk Clive and the other Vampires when they were most vulnerable.
Susan continued, not bothering to wait for Rowan’s answer. She knew Rowan would do the smart thing and that confidence buoyed Rowan’s resolve. “Keep me apprised, both off
icially and privately. And do be careful. The number of times you’ve been nearly killed in the last year is far too high already.”
“Everyone who isn’t following in line with Roth and his ilk are exposed and at risk. You be careful too.”
“Rex and I have already altered our schedules and tightened our security at home and at the office. I know some of the others are as well. Factions are settling together so we’re keeping an eye on where everyone is lining up.”
Roth’s little anti-treaty group didn’t care that the people they were selling out were the very people who laid their lives on the line to not only enforce the Treaty, but to keep the fragile peace. It didn’t bother them that open war would be disastrous with huge casualties on both sides and worse, spilling into the general human population.
And for what? They were power drunk and willing to burn everything down rather than face the truth.
Shit was complicated.
As much as people continually tried to make every religious, political, geographic, whatever issue an us versus them thing, usually it wasn’t that simple.
The truth of the planet was that there has always been a spectrum of things people did, believed, worshipped, not worshipped, found beautiful, ugly, worth celebrating, worth respecting and worth fighting and dying over.
It was larger and a million times more complex than right or wrong. It was a balance so delicate it kept all the beings co-existing on the planet from doing something so disastrous it destroyed everything.
Rowan realized Susan had been talking to her and she sharpened her attention. “I apologize, I was just caught up in something I’m trying to work through.”
“Just more nagging at you to be careful.”
“All right. Heads up that I’m going to have someone looking into Roth and this threat to David.”
Susan hummed in agreement. “Would you like me to recommend someone to you?”
“Much appreciated, but someone very bad, but very connected, owes me a favor.”
“All right then. I do love you, sweetheart. Stay in teams. Don’t let them get you alone.”
