by Mark Henwick
I shook my head. “I can’t judge. They have more relevant experience.”
She shrugged. “Anyway, they finally got off that and changed to discussing whether they can do the direction-finding spell that Weaver mentioned.”
“And?”
“They think they can, if they use your power boost, like they did for the aural projection.” She smiled. “And then they got very quiet and thoughtful. I decided to leave them to it.”
“If they can work with me, I’d rather work with them than Weaver. I know I’m not being fair to him. He’s the head of the local community and only doing what he has to, but...”
“Well, I think you’re being excessively fair to him, from what Kane told me. Anyway, we should talk about direction finding with Flint and Kane tomorrow.”
We listened to the fire crackling as the log burned. Watched the light dance. It was comfortable. Relaxing.
“Am I crazy, doc?” The joke question slipped out before I could catch it.
She laughed.
“Sorry,” I said immediately. “I’m not being serious. It’s probably the question you dread being asked as a psychiatrist.”
“You mean in the middle of the night, wrapped in a blanket, drinking in front of the fire, and being asked by someone I haven’t even done an assessment session with?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
I leaned my head on her shoulder, ready to fall back into companionable silence.
“Don’t be sorry,” she said. “What makes it different is you’re the Mistress of my House. You get to ask me whatever you want, whenever you want.”
I chuckled.
“So what specifically made you ask that question?”
Oh. She was taking me seriously.
There had been shrinks assigned to the unit back in my Ops 4-10 days. I’d steered clear of them as much as possible, but if they’d run cozy sessions like this...
“I can’t even convince some people that I had the spirit of my dead twin sister in my head. Now I’m pulling on some dark power and I can’t tell if it’s something inside me or outside, evil or just powerful, and whether I want it or not. I don’t know.”
“Well, all Adepts seem to have spirit guides. That doesn’t make you any crazier than the rest of them.”
I laughed. “Fair enough. That still doesn’t explain Tara. But anyway, the thing is, I went rogue down in New Mexico. I was crazy. And afterwards, Tara and Hana were gone.”
She huffed. “So let me get this straight. You’re trying to fit in a theory that you’ve always been a bit crazy and you got more crazy. Then they had to fix you, and that cured you of hearing voices. And, by the way, all Adepts are a bit crazy. That about right?”
It sounded dumb when she said it out loud, but I could only nod. That kinda summed it up.
“But you’re still an Adept. If it was craziness that made you an Adept and you’re still an Adept, why haven’t you re-created the voices in your head?”
“I don’t know. You’re the shrink.”
Her turn to laugh again.
“I’m only a human shrink,” she said. “Let me see. Hmmm. By human standards, of course you’re wildly insane; you believe in vampires and werewolves and witches. But by paranormal standards...” Her hand emerged from the blanket and waggled uncertainly. “I think you’re in the normal distribution for sanity, sort of, for what it’s worth.”
“You think? For what it’s worth?” I started giggling and that set her off too. “Ringing endorsement or what?”
“I can’t tell my Mistress she’s insane. If you’re insane, that would mean your whole House is insane, and that Scott will go insane, and I can’t handle all that. I can’t make myself believe it because I don’t want it to be possible. Which is not exactly a sane thing for a psychiatrist to say.”
We were skipping along that strange boundary between serious and silly, like old friends. It felt good.
She reached out to take another sip from her brandy, and went serious again.
“Something has happened to you tonight,” she said. “You haven’t gone crazy, before you ask, but we can all sense it, even me. Still, that’s all for tomorrow, and Pia made me promise you should get some sleep.”
“She left you here to watch for me?”
“Guilty as charged, your Honor.”
She wriggled around beneath the blanket until she was facing me rather than the fire and our arms slipped easily around each other.
“If you can’t sleep...” she murmured and lifted her chin to expose her throat.
This was not going to send me to sleep.
I felt the gentle pressure of her eukori and welcomed it in. I could feel her eagerness, the way her neck felt loose, the deep thrill of anticipation, the ache in her jaw, all overlaying the exact same sensations in me.
I burrowed down with my face against the warmth of her neck and let her marque softly fill my lungs. The tensions of the day evaporated, pushed out by desire.
Goosebumps. All over. Our hearts thumping against each other’s ribs. Gentle movement against me. Her breath on my ear. Pleasure pumping into our bodies with each heartbeat.
I ran my tongue over her neck, lingering, searching out the urgent pulse beneath her skin.
Here. Here. Here. It called to me.
One second my jaw was throbbing in time; the next, my fangs had manifested and sunk into her neck
She gasped, held me tightly.
I pulled, and the pleasure burned through me like lava, lighting up the sensitive taryma, the network of channels that took her Blood from my fangs down to the Athanate glands at the base of my throat.
Yesss. Mine. Mine!
Mistress of the House. I was supposed to be calm. The perfume coming off her skin filled my nose and the need to absorb it into my marque, to make it mine, was flooding my head.
She didn’t struggle. Her eukori told her what I felt, the mounting pleasure, the overwhelming need that woke even the wolf inside me. And yet she relaxed into it. She fed from my enjoyment. Her hand came up to stroke my hair.
Such bliss.
Every muscle in my body felt alive and yet loose.
So warm, so comfortable.
My fangs disappeared and I licked the wounds on her neck clumsily.
So tired suddenly.
I tilted my head back.
Her turn.
My racing heart slowed. Down. Down. Right down.
Strange.
“I... ” I couldn’t form the words. It was getting dark, so I couldn’t see.
“Sorry,” she whispered as I slumped. “A little trick of the Blood.”
Chapter 34
“Breakfast!”
I woke like a cartoon character, all staring eyes and levitating off the bed.
Luckily, Bian and Scott were standing well back. Good thing. They had trays of food. Eggs. Bacon. Toast. Waffles. Honey. Coffee. Valuable stuff. Not to be knocked to the floor.
Heaven.
Wait one moment.
How did I get here?
Amanda knocked me out. Some kind of trick with pacifics in her Blood.
Under instruction from Pia, I’d bet. The pair of them working together.
I growled, but my stomach told me breakfast was more important. They would have to wait until afterwards.
And I had to admit, I did feel much better, even if I’d only slept a few hours.
Even though some of that time was filled with the most detailed erotic dreams.
Of Scott.
I hoped they were dreams.
Just as Bian put the tray on top of me, my memory engaged fully and reality hit.
“I’m supposed to be meeting the Hecate!”
“Not just yet,” Bian said, holding down the tray so I couldn’t get up.
“What do you mean?”
“I talked it through with Pia earlier and I put in a holding call to the Hecate.”
“What? Why?”
“Pia said you shouldn’
t be woken too early after you’d finally been encouraged to go to sleep. I agreed with her.”
“Encouraged to go to sleep. Is that what you call it?” I didn’t bother mentioning that her climbing into bed with me hadn’t exactly been encouraging me to sleep either.
“Neat trick of Amanda’s. I’ll have to get her to show me how.”
“Get in line. And guess who I’m going to practice it on?”
Bian laughed. She and Scott sat cross-legged on the bed as I started eating.
“There’s been a call from Felix and Cameron, as well,” Bian said. “We told them you’d call back when you were ready.”
I winced. That wasn’t as bad as Yelena’s way of dealing with Felix’s calls, but my alphas wouldn’t expect to be told to wait because I was asleep.
“They’re very interested to hear about Scott,” Bian went on. “I think they’ll ask little Scotty to go pay them a visit soon.”
“Little Scotty sitting right here,” Scott said with one of his twisted smiles. “Reporting that werewolf ears work well.”
Bian grinned at him.
I looked at the pair of them and blinked. Scott was all loosened up. The hair-trigger tension in his body from yesterday was gone.
Oh, hell.
“Have you two been introduced?” I asked carefully.
“We’re well beyond that, Round-eye,” Bian said. “We’ve slept together, remember. In your bed.”
‘Slept’ my ass. That hadn’t been an erotic dream.
My brain connected up the dots. Pia, last night, saying that House Altau and the Denver pack used to have an agreement: Were cubs and new Athanate in crusis getting together to blow off newbie steam without anyone getting hurt. Hot sex as therapy. It seemed effective, she’d said.
And who’d been Diakon at Altau then? Who’d been the liaison with the pack? Who’d organized those orgies?
Bian Hwa Trang.
Sometime in the morning, my sleeping brain had been linked to Bian’s eukori while she screwed the new-Were madness out of Scott.
Which, it could have been argued, was the responsibility of his alpha. Me.
I cleared my throat and caught her eye.
As I expected, butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She was looking out for me. Again.
Time to get back in gear. I put aside a burst of irrational anger directed at the Hecate.
“When do you start your video conference, and how long do you think it’ll be?” I asked Bian.
“About ten minutes, and I’m hoping it’ll be brief. Say finished in an hour.”
“Okay. Scott, would you go and ask Pia to invite the Hecate to come here, please?”
Scott nodded and slipped off the bed.
Bian raised her eyebrows.
“The Hecate wants to talk to Diana and Kaothos. Even though she knows where Haven is, there’s no way I’m taking her there. No way you’d let me take her there. So...”
“You’ll use Jen’s conference call system to let them talk. From here, where you have security.”
“I don’t think the security will be needed.”
“And I’m here,” Bian said. “What’s she like?”
“Eerie. Scary,” I replied. “You think you’re in control and then you find she can come along and yank you into some weird version of the spirit world, where she can do anything. Yeah. Scary.”
“Hmm. She can do that when she’s prepared. Like down in RiNo. She got ready and then lured you there.”
“I understand,” I said. “You’re thinking she’s somehow made me invite her here.”
“Did cross my mind.”
“If she was going to do that, she’d have made us invite her to Haven.”
“Unless she can’t manage to compel me, you and Diana at the same time. In which case, her thinking might go, why not come here and grab some hostages.”
“Some she’d already grabbed before.”
“And me. But knowing I’d be here...” Bian trailed away, looking thoughtful. “Really could make you paranoid, this stuff.”
I had to smile at that.
“Anyway,” Bian said. “Let’s proceed on the basis she’s just coming here with good intentions. I’ve alerted our Ops 4-10 troops. If something goes wrong for us, something far worse will go wrong for the Northern League.”
I shivered. Bian was nothing if not well prepared.
I needed to start thinking about the Hecate’s visit, but first I should take the opportunity to talk to Bian about something else entirely.
I glanced across the room. The bedroom door was closed.
“So, ummm, last night,” I said.
Bian looked at me, still all wide-eyed innocence. “Yes?”
I sighed, and tried to get her on the defensive. “You and Scott—”
“Oh, yes. Very enjoyable. We didn’t disturb you, did we?”
“No. But...”
“Why did I jump him, instead of leaving it you?”
“Yes.”
“For a start, he really wanted it and he really needed it. Cubs are like that. For another, I like him, and it’s done him a world of good.”
“I can see that.”
“And you were asleep.”
“You woke me earlier, after your shower.”
She laughed. “When I got here, the only thing on your mind was going to sleep. As it turned out, that was what was on my mind as well. It’s been too hectic at Haven. And you tell a mean bedtime story.”
She wasn’t lying, and she wasn’t telling the complete truth either. She’d been worried about me. She’d come to see if I was all right.
She crawled up the bed and sat beside me.
“Tu casa es mi casa, Round-eye,” she said and switched to Athanate. “So ykos mo ykos ei. Your House is my House. Your responsibilities are my responsibilities. So Scott is my responsibility, too.”
“Fair enough. But with that responsibility comes rights.”
“And you were expecting me to exercise them with you.” She rested her head on my shoulder. “Your Blood is mine, sister. Your body is mine. But you’ve made a constitution for your House about exercising those rights. And I find that’s mine too.”
A constitution that said no one in my House would need to share Blood or body without their permission, freely given.
“It was never meant to apply to people outside of my House. It’s not meant to apply to you.”
“Then I choose to let it apply.”
Her words fell, soft as feathers, heavy as thunder, and I realized how much I loved this woman. I’d loved her from the time I’d first met her.
She’d made me scared. Angry. Happy. Frustrated. Horny. Alive.
I had pushed her away. Denied myself and her.
And I couldn’t deny it any longer.
It didn’t make any difference to the way I loved Alex and Jen. But I wanted it to make a difference to Bian.
“When it gets hectic at Haven...”
I swallowed. My throat felt dry. She waited.
“Why don’t you come stay here?”
“We could have a pajama party? With Jen and Alex? I love pajama parties. But wait. You don’t have pajamas.”
She was impossible. Or maybe, the refusal to be serious was hiding that vulnerable part I’d seen such brief glimpses of before.
“Do so,” I played along.
“No.” She shook her head. “You may have stolen some of Alex’s, but you don’t use them except to wander around the house, so they don’t count. And Alex never wears pajamas in bed either. But I have a solution! I own a business making silk PJs. They’ll be a present to you. So what will we do, get in a pizza and beer and chill?”
“No. We’ll probably cook our own dinner and eat it in bed. With champagne.”
“Hmm. Sounds naughty.”
“It might be. We have rules in this house for eating in bed,” I warned her. I picked up a crispy slice of bacon and held it o
ut. “For example, only finger food, and you’re not allowed to feed yourself.”
She nibbled the bacon delicately out of my fingers.
“And you’re not allowed to lick your own fingers.”
I waggled my fingers. Moving deliberately, and without breaking eye contact, she licked them clean.
I tingled all the way down into my belly.
“I think I’m looking forward to this pajama party,” she purred. “Meantime, I have a video conference to attend, and you need to get ready to say hi to the Hecate.” She looked me up and down. The sheets had slipped a little as I’d sat there.
Oh, what a shame.
She licked her lips.
“I assume you’re going to get dressed to meet her? Or do you think you’d be more distracting like that?”
Chapter 35
Forty minutes later, the Hecate and one of her coven arrived at the front door.
I’d only had time to talk to Pia and Julie about the Hecate’s visit and arrange for Diana to be expecting the call—there had been no time for any discussion about knocking me out last night. No time for anything else.
Amanda stood nervously to the side.
And Tove! Damn.
I’d forgotten all about her, and I couldn’t explicitly warn the Hecate not to speak in front of her about the paranormal world. I felt a surge of anger. At myself, for being disorganized. At Tove, just for being there. At the Hecate. At everything.
Where did that come from? What’s gotten in to me?
No time for that.
I would have to take whatever steps were necessary with Tove later. That was my Athanate responsibility.
The Hecate stepped inside first. She was in her customary inappropriate clothing for winter—thin black clothes and a leather duster. She’d gone back to the white hair and frozen blue eyes.
Cold air from outside blew in with her, dropping the temperature and making me shiver.
That cold blue gaze swept across the hall and everyone inside.
A threat assessment, or I was a pink banana.
Have I just made a really dumb mistake?
Too late now.
I cleared my throat.
“Hecate, welcome. May I introduce these members of my House. Julie Anderson. Pia Shirazi. Flint and Kane you know already. I believe you’ve also met Amanda Lloyd. And this is Tove Johansen, a visiting friend from Clearbrook, up in Minnesota. This is Hecate Gwendolyn Enkil...ay.”
