Day Into Night

by C. L. Quinn

  Now, he knew, without doubt, they were taking from him, but they were feeding him too. This symbiotic relationship had always been written in the stars.

  “I can feel you,” Will whispered, moving slowly around the perimeter of the cave, fingertips sliding along the wall, surprised anew at the infusion of warmth that tickled his skin as he went.

  After a full circle, Will reached for his pack and removed two bottles of water and some dried fruit. After dancing all night, he was as tired as Brigitte, but here is where he needed to rest. Finishing half the fruit and one bottle of water, he sat on the ground, which became warmer and warmer with each passing moment, then lay back to seek the greatest contact possible with the living world. Here he would stay until the others arrived after sunset when they would start again the pragmatic part of the research. He would help them study something that he already understood completely.

  Eyes on the waves of color overhead that moved much like the Northern Lights, Will let his mind relax. He was unsurprised where it went. Olivia’s image filled it, leaning against the wall, breathing deep, drunk, her touch where he’d imagined it more than once…and that thin robe! Minutes after aggressive sex with Brigitte, mostly to try to purge Olivia from his memory, he’d taken a cold shower, finally calmed his frazzled nerves, and walked out, nearly bare, to find her big blues on him.

  “You’re cruel, Fates, you know that, right?”

  His voice bounced off the walls and fed back to him. After hooking up with Brigitte again, they had reconnected and he admitted that it could become serious. When he was ready to share his life with a woman he truly respected and cared about, Brigitte might have been the one…until Olivia showed up, the one woman who had haunted him from the moment he laid eyes on her.

  She didn’t want him, she’d made that clear. When he’d accepted Ife’s invitation, he’d come to get away from his unsettled life, and Olivia had been part of that. He’d had no idea that Olivia had ties here in South America. Had he known, he might not have come.

  Closing his mind off now, he allowed himself to sink into the earth, almost literally, as his body seemed to burrow into the soft ground several inches deep. Who was he fooling? He’d always have come, he was meant to be here. And somewhere, deep in his unconscious mind, he’d known that she might have been too.

  “Trying to slip away from me?”

  Torin’s booming voice brought Will’s head up.

  “No, just getting an early start.”

  “You know better.”

  “Yeah, I do. You’re here now.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Will’s watchdog scooted up on a table, music playing in his ears as he sipped a cold coffee.

  Will dropped his head back down and closed his eyes.

  AT DEZ’S PLACE AT FIRST MEAL

  Olivia shook back her hair, tied in a high ponytail with scarlet-tinted loose tendrils cascading around her face. Tonight, her grandmother and Zach were taking her to see the big mystery of the region, Ife’s newly discovered cave. Never mind the fact that, after Siberia, she’d have figured the last thing any of them wanted to do was climb deep into the ground again. It hadn’t exactly been a pleasant thing back then, and she couldn’t see a reason to do it again.

  Her eyes moving over the crowd gathered for first meal, she discovered that, reluctantly, she was searching for Will and Brigitte. A sharp stab in her chest let her know that she really should keep her distance and ignore them, but she found herself seeking them out anyway. When neither showed up, she finished piling up her tray and joined Zach and Dez at the main table. After finishing off an excellent omelet, she glared at Zach.

  “You’re really going to take me down a ladder into the bowels of the earth again. I know it’s been a while, but didn’t we get enough of that at Lake Baikal?”

  “No,” Zach parried. “This is nothing like Siberia, although you’ll be thrilled to know that Nikolai has been working with us on this discovery. No, this cavern is warm, solid, and stunningly amazing. Liv, you have to see it.”

  “Oh, I’ll go, of course. When have I ever turned either of you down? Don’t answer that. Some questions are obviously rhetorical. It sounds neat, so I’m there. After more cake please.”

  An extended groan carried across the entire room from the doorway as Brigitte entered, dressed, but wearing a bathrobe over her clothes, a hand to her head. “Why did you guys let me do that? Between dancing, boozing, and fucking, I think I saw my life flash before my eyes.”

  Laughs cascaded through the group. Mostly vampire, they understood and appreciated the feeling.

  “Coffee. Stat!” Brigitte filled a cup the size of a small mixing bowl with the hot brew, poured a generous splash of cream in, leaned against the buffet table with her eyes closed, and savored the first sip. An orgasmic moan later, she pushed away with a wide smile.

  “Better. Dez, would it be awful if I bow out tonight and spend it in bed. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this exhausted.”

  Watching the gorgeous vampire approach the table, Dez sat back to study her. “Still tired? Willoughby must be quite the sex machine.”

  Dez didn’t notice Zach’s expression as he reached for her. She continued. “Humans can’t easily wear out vampires.”

  Brigitte, hands wrapped tight around the big cup, grinned, her eyebrows raised. “Well, he can. Did.”

  Zach tugged hard on Dez’s arm. “Dez, don’t…”

  Laughing, Dez touched Zach, still unaware he was trying to stop her. “Then he’s a keeper.”

  Brigitte shrugged, the grin softening to an easy smile.

  “I think he is.”

  “Dez!” Zach called out, exasperated.

  “What?”

  Finally getting his mate’s attention, Zach lowered his gaze and leaned closer to place his lips to her ear.

  “Stop. I’ll explain later, but get off this topic.”

  Lifting her head, Dez nodded, then turned back to Brigitte. “Yeah, perhaps an extended rest will do you good. We’re going to the cavern today and you’ve already seen it.”

  “Yup. Pretty. Don’t need to see it again. Thanks.”

  She lifted her eyes and looked to the other side of the table where Olivia sat silently dicing a tall stack of pancakes into child-size pieces.

  “Wow. You’re really focused on your task.”

  Olivia lifted her eyes from her plate. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve always liked tiny food.”

  “Um, Ooo…kay. We didn’t get a chance to catch up last night. How about we get together for second meal? I heard Cari and Eras spent a few weeks with you in Vegas recently. I’d love to hear the details.”

  It’s not her fault, Olivia had to remind herself. You cannot be upset with Brigitte.

  “Sure, that’s fine. They had a smashing time, and of course, hated to leave. You haven’t seen them recently?”

  “No. I’m heading to Colorado right after I finish here.”

  “Bridge, what brought you here?”

  Olivia wondered if it had been for Will, or had they just met back up accidently.

  “To see Ife. I haven’t seen my brother or sisters in a long time, so I’m visiting them one by one. I’ve just, um, lingered here longer than I expected to.”

  God, don’t start talking about sex with Will again. I already look like an idiot for pulverizing my food.

  Awkward silence brought the uncomfortable conversation to a close and Brigitte stood, the coffee cup still firmly held. “I’ll see you all tonight. Enjoy the sparkly cave.”

  As she wandered back toward the door, Brigitte scoped out the breakfast buffet, filled a plate high with a variety of items, and took it with her.

  Once Brigitte disappeared, Dez’s eyes shot to Zach.

  “Well everything about this meal since Brigitte showed up was straight up weird. You care to fill me in?”

  The bullet-quick gaze went to Olivia. “And you, what the hell was that? ‘I like tiny food’? Tell me.”

  Zach took
his cue from a silent Olivia, who just pushed the pancake bits around in her plate. It was up to him to begin the story. “Your granddaughter is happy to be here with us, but she actually came here for Will.”

  “What? Will? Olivia, you’ve been seeing Will? Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”

  Feeling like a teenage girl caught by her parents in bed with a boy, she shrugged. “Dez, there’s nothing to tell. I haven’t been seeing Will.”

  “All right. Then I’m confused.”

  “Let me fix that. Do you remember when I told you that I helped Chione find one of the human earth-warriors? Will was the one. I didn’t elaborate because the two days I spent with him were strange. You two know I’ve never had a long relationship. I’ve never been in love, which suited me just fine. Too many hot sexy men in the world to get tied down to one. I went to find Chione’s missing soldier in the desert in Arizona last year, and well, let me say that the first time I saw him, he was soaking wet and completely naked. For some reason I still don’t understand, he got to me right away.”

  Dez placed a hand on Olivia’s. “Darling, love doesn’t ask permission. It’s a bitch that way.”

  “I guess I discovered that. When I entered Will’s spirit realm later that night to show him what I was, to prove that he had to believe me and trust me, I saw his nature too. I saw the latent power that shouldn’t have been granted to a human being; it was overwhelming for him. He’d suffered so much, Dez. More interestingly, I saw that he was Shoazan and could be a vampire’s mate. It spooked me, so much that when I left him in Africa, all I wanted to do was forget him. And I did. At least, I thought I had until about a month ago when he rescued Corri and brought her back to Vegas. Since then, I haven’t been able to purge him from my mind. Last week, I finally had to admit to myself that I didn’t want to. I needed to find him, and here I am. Too late.”

  “Livie, you don’t know that.”

  “No, I won’t walk over whatever he and Brigitte are building. I’m too late, it’s that simple. If they’re together, if they’ve fallen in love, it’s great. Brigitte’s a darling and Will deserves to be happy. I’m not even sure what I’d have to offer him. My feelings are out of whack. All I know is that I wanted to see what we might be together. Now, it’s set. We’re only going to be friends.”

  “That coffee looks good.” Olivia pushed her seat back, stood, bent to kiss Dez on the cheek, then Zach, smiled, genuinely, she hoped, and lifted her mug. “Let’s not think about Will today. I’ll make it an Irish coffee and go back to my room. Zach, let me know when you’re going to leave, okay? I can use the distraction.”

  Zach started to say something as she walked away, but Dez laid a finger over his lips. “Don’t.”

  “But she needs to know that Will is likely to be there.”

  “Darling, no she doesn’t. Let’s allow the course of events to chart its own path.”

  “But…”

  “My love, do I need to find something else for you to do with that mouth?”

  Three

  “Wakey, wakey!”

  From deep in his spirit merge with the earth, Will heard the familiar voice and smiled. He truly believed that man could wake the dead. As he floated from the merge, he sat up carefully, aware by now that it took a few minutes to regain his equilibrium after several of these sessions. He felt Torin’s hands on his back, supporting him.

  “Easy there, ‘bro.”

  “Thanks, Tor.” Will felt fine now, opened his eyes and easily pushed off the warm ground to stand. “What’d you bring tonight?”

  “Phoenix bananas.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.”

  “That’s my mission. Feed you food you’ve never heard of. With this, you take bananas that are so far gone, you’d think they must be spoiled, then you mash them, add one each of eight different spices and blend it into a topping poured over jalapeño-infused mixed vegetables. The bananas, like the Phoenix, rise again. Spicy, sweet, amazing. You’ll have a happy mouth, I promise.”

  For the past three weeks, Torin often brought local foods when he came down at dusk to check on Will. Once Ife realized that Will went down into the cave every day by himself while her vampire team still slept, she’d assigned Torin as an assistant slash caretaker.

  Will had been pissed at first, but eventually accepted the local man’s help. Since then, they’d fallen into almost a brotherly friendship. A close male friend, Will had never had one. Because he himself was large and imposing, a loner at heart, men had never tried to befriend him and he’d been okay with that. Now, with the easy camaraderie he’d developed with Caedmon and Torin, he knew what he’d missed.

  “I’m starving, so let’s do this.”

  Torin used a delicate silver cake-server to scoop out two large portions from an equally delicate-looking tray. He routinely swiped items from Ife’s warehouse compound because he told her that the facility was “too fancy and had too much,” when many of the local clans had so little. He had seen in her eyes that she agreed and an unspoken agreement that he could take what he wanted had been born. Since then, she’d happily noticed some of the elaborate items that her mother routinely sent her being used with joy in the villages she often visited. Torin was doing a very nice job in redistributing her wealth.

  His plate full, Will dropped back down onto the ground and scooped up his first bite, followed by a moan of pleasure. “Shit, Tor, this is fantastic, the best yet.”

  “You said that two nights ago.”

  “You keep excelling. God, this is good. What are you trying to fatten me up for?”

  “So that hot little vampiress dumps your chubby ass and comes to me.”

  “Hah! Not happening. I mean, look at you, then look at me. No contest man.”

  Friendly chiding was all it was. Will was handsome in a rough-guy kind of way, big, his body highly-toned, the muscles deeply chiseled. But Torin was every bit a woman’s idea of desirable manhood, at four inches above Will’s height. While he carried another thirty pounds, he was built like solid rock, muscles just as carved as Will’s from hard work. Most women looking at either of them would wonder what it would be like to have him beneath her or above her.

  The comment wasn’t a surprise. Will had known from the beginning that Torin had the hots for Brigitte. Hell, yeah, he would, the girl was stunning and vampire, which meant endless stamina, and in her case, inventive aggressive sex. The girl loved to fuck. It was what they had most in common; what brought them together back in Colorado and again here in Brazil. But it turned out, it wasn’t the only thing. They truly cared for each other.

  “Sorry, dude, just saying that if the opportunity presents itself…”

  “It won’t.” Will surveyed the thick braids that Torin wore wrapped around his head, raven’s wing black, his beard neatly trimmed. Yeah, Brigitte wouldn’t hesitate to jump on a man like that, except that right now, she was fully committed to what she and Will had.

  As he lifted another forkful of the banana mash, Olivia’s face sudden filled his mind and he forcibly tamped it down. No, no! He was with Brigitte. For how long, he didn’t know, but this relationship they had was an unspoken, if temporary, pact to be together instead of with others. He had to, would, honor that pact. Besides, Olivia was here to see her family, not him, so there was no conflict anyway.

  “Ife up yet?”

  Finishing his plate and licking it, Torin looked over at Will. “Yeah. They’re going to work in the gardens before they come here. She asked to let her know if you had any new epiphanies for her.”

  “Not tonight. I felt like I was…how would I describe it? Sort of like I was in a...soup of light? Maybe that’s as close as I can get. But it was all sensations, nothing that I can use to inform Ife or her scientists about its origins, purpose, or power.”

  “Too bad. It’ll come, though, I have faith. I’ve felt your power.”

  Will nodded. He had. Two days after Ife had assigned Torin to keep an eye on Will, he’d come down into the c
ave to find him lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious, breathing shallow, his color pale, his skin cold. Startled, worried, he’d knelt beside Will and tried to rouse him. The contact had pulled Torin into the bizarre power exchange between Will and the living planet, feeding him into the power wave. Terrified, Torin’s first reaction was to fight, but Will calmed his nerves with magic, and once done, his body dormant beside Will’s, Torin experience something normal humans rarely did…earth magic up close and personal. Instantly, he discovered that there was a world much greater beyond everything he and his ancestors had ever known…that there was so much more unseen than seen in this universe. As he woke later, tears filling his eyes, the bond with his new friend deeper than he could have imagined, he knew he was changed forever.

  “I am humbled to have been given this glimpse. What you are, my friend, is greater than mere mortals.”

  Will had placed both hands on Torin’s shoulders. “No, that is not true. What I am is a conduit, a part of you and this world, all of us part of the whole, all of us vital to existence. I am just like you, Torin, other than the gift I have been given that I never feel I deserve. I serve this living world and so do you. In different ways, yes, but we all serve.”

  From that day, their relationship had become so close, they knew without fail, that they would remain companions for the rest of their days.

  “So, your girlfriend coming down tonight?” Torin asked.

  “No. Brigitte finds this cave fantastically beautiful, but she doesn’t have any desire to revisit it.”

  “Well, if she did, you can go back up, Willie boy. This would be a fine place to…”

  Will punched Torin in the arm, pulling very little of his strength.

  Rubbing the spot, Torin, grinned. “You know, the girl deserves a great orgasm.”