Amor and More

by Radclyffe

  “Oh?”

  “You’re the most genuine person I’ve ever met. I love that about you. But tomorrow…can you pretend to be surprised?”

  Kerry’s burst of laughter echoed through Westminster Hall, filling its dark corners with sound. “I’ll certainly do my best.”

  “That’s all I can ask.” She pulled Kerry forward. “Come on. Let’s tell our family the good news.”

  Rebekah Weatherspoon was raised in southern New Hampshire and now lives in Southern California where she has spent the last several years working in film and television production. She has a degree in European literature from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her love of writing keeps her busy and, occasionally, out of trouble.

  This story features characters from Blacker Than Blue.

  Her Queen’s Happiness

  Rebekah Weatherspoon

  I clicked over the volume button and turned my music up a little louder. The bass pounded hard enough to make my skin vibrate, but I didn’t mind. A notch higher might even do the trick, swallow up some of the noise in my head. I considered my keyboard for a second, then did just that. Cranked it up just a little bit more, setting the walls and bookshelves in the room on vibrate too. The insulated walls and reinforced concrete surrounding me would muffle the beats even if I jacked the volume up as high as it could go. Not that I would be disturbing anyone. It was the middle of July. The floors of the sorority house above were empty, the girls of Alpha Beta Omega home for the summer. A few were studying abroad and two, carrying a double major, were still in town taking summer classes but living on campus. The house was basically empty.

  The music wouldn’t bother Ginger either, but she was still away.

  Minimizing the player, I clicked back over my email and looked at the pictures Laura had sent over from the shop, different angles of a skull she’d tattooed on an orange. Her first piece. I smiled again at the precision in her work. Her parents flipped out the moment they found out their oldest daughter had decided to leverage her fine arts degree from Maryland University into an apprenticeship at a tattoo shop. We spared them the aneurysm of knowing the shop was owned by a vampire.

  I clicked on her second piece, a bleeding heart on a banana. Very good work. I wanted to show Ginger. She could see the images in my head if I thought about them hard enough, but I wanted her to see them in person, while she was sitting on my lap.

  “Hey! Turn it down!”

  I spun my chair around to find my sister-queen Kina standing in the doorway. Our sister-queen Faeth stood right behind her.

  “Sorry.” I hit the volume button in the other direction and my office stopped shaking.

  “Fuck. Are you going deaf?” Kina went on, playfully digging in her ear.

  “No.”

  “I hope you don’t listen to that crap outside of the house, giving us Native girls a bad name with your shitty taste in music.”

  I mustered up a smile. “Dubstep’s the future.”

  “Dubstep is crap. Sounds like someone is trying to murder a robot.”

  “I like it,” Faeth said with a shrug and a little jolt of her straight hips. “Gets the blood pumping, yeah?”

  “You’re both crazy.” Then Kina kicked her head back in the direction of the door. “We’re taking off, so you have the whole house to yourself. You can run around naked upstairs if you want. Omi’s at home with Mary, and Natasha and Rodrick are somewhere downtown handling Tokyo’s need to be tied up and smacked around.”

  “Tempting, but I’m fine right here. Where are you going?”

  “Babysit Jillian.”

  “Is this your first time babysitting?” I asked Faeth. Benny and Cleo had just recently caved to the idea of leaving their daughter with someone who wasn’t the child’s grandmother. Jillian was a sweet baby, but if my own vivid memories of motherhood served me correctly, watching an infant took some work.

  “No. I used to watch my little brother. It was forty-five years ago, but the basics are fresh. Besides, our friend here will be on diaper duty.” Faeth grinned, flashing her fangs as she lightly punched Kina on the shoulder.

  I drummed up another smile this time and a little bit of a chuckle.

  Kina turned to Faeth. “Go on without me. I’ll be there in a sec.”

  Faeth glanced between us a moment before she nodded with her own weak smile. Then she vanished.

  “You all right?” Kina asked.

  There was no point in lying to her. Our sister-queen bond made us sensitive to each other’s moods. That bond and the fact that Kina and I had been friends for almost a hundred years, and lovers for more than half that time, gave her a unique ability to tell when something was off with me. I rubbed my face and leaned forward in my chair.

  “Ginger saw her uncle yesterday.”

  The air sucked through Kina’s teeth, making that painfully sympathetic sound that let me know I didn’t need to explain any further.

  “And she’s not back yet?”

  “No. She’s at her parents’. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Go to her.”

  I shook my head. “She really wants to be alone. I don’t…I don’t want to barge in on her.”

  “Hey, listen. I know I’ve never experienced anything like your mating bond. What you and your na’suul have is special and strong.” Both an understatement. “But I know a thing or two about women.” Now, that much was true. “Go to her. She might want to be alone, but if she’s hurting, she’s gonna need her wife.”

  I wish I could deny that Kina was making sense, but I knew she was right. Ginger was hurting. I could feel her pain and her frustration and even the tears she’d shed in the hours since she’d left her uncle’s home in London. It was like this every time they saw each other. Months would pass without Ginger mentioning Seamus’s name. She’d only known the man existed for a few years. A horrible series of events had led to Ginger’s birth and their separation. The discovery of our love, the first real sense of salvation in my immortal life, was soon followed by Ginger’s own human life ending, abruptly. And just as abruptly Seamus had been thrust in front of her, presented by our Master as the missing piece to her past.

  Ginger still hadn’t figured out how she felt about him, but the emotions around their visits had formed a pattern. The hopefulness and anticipation. Somehow this time things would be less awkward. But the disappointment would settle in sometime toward the end of their time together, and then the guilt. She’d return to me…cranky, for the lack of a better word. Closed off. We’d make it a few hours, possibly feed and then make love, before Ginger would vanish to her parents’ house for hours before returning with a smile on her face, all of the pain shrugged off. The complicated part was our marriage bond allowed me to feel all those emotions she pushed aside while putting on a happy façade for our girls and our sisters and for me. Each visit things got worse and worse. She hadn’t come back to me cranky this time. She hadn’t come back to me at all.

  Maybe Kina had a point. I had to go see my Red.

  “I’ll give her a little more time.”

  “Don’t wait too long. You know she needs you. But put on some pants first.” After my grunt of agreement—wouldn’t be a good idea to show up at my in-laws’ house in underwear and a tank top—Kina squeezed my shoulder. “You know where to find us.” Then she was gone.

  My music was cranked back up. After all, now I really was alone. I sent Laura a text to stroke her ego a bit and lend some encouragement.

  I paced.

  I made it fifteen minutes. I couldn’t wait any longer. After I threw on some jeans, one of Ginger’s hoodies, and my sneakers, I vanished to my in-laws’ and appeared on the side of their house.

  It was a quiet summer night in Reading, Mass. The streetlights in the Carmichaels’ neighborhood let out a low buzz only a sensitive or patient ear could detect. The crickets and other little yard creatures joined in with their tiny chirping. I let myself in through the garage door and knocked lightly on the ki
tchen door just inside. A special knock to let Red’s family know there was a vampire at the door. Linda and Fredo were watching TV, but I didn’t want to just appear in their living room.

  Linda called out for me to come in. I found my mother-in-law on the couch watching Antiques Roadshow, her husband passed out with his head in her lap. His long legs were hanging off the edge of the arm of the couch.

  “Hi, sweetheart. I’d get up and kiss you, but…” She motioned to her husband’s dead weight.

  “It’s okay. I just came to check on Ginger.”

  “Is my darling daughter nearby?”

  “She’s on the roof.”

  “I told you I heard something.” Fredo coughed and rolled over. “Hey, Camila. Can you go up there and get her?”

  “That’s the plan. If you’ll excuse me.”

  I vanished up to the roof and appeared near the chimney. Ginger was a dozen or so feet away, looking out over the street. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and her chin rested on her arms. I could still smell her tears swirled with her light, sweet fruity scent that flared the moment I showed up.

  Please go away. Her voice was clear in my head before I could take a step closer, raw and aching.

  I hesitated a moment before I replied. My demon had to obey its queen, but as a wife…it wasn’t so easy to just walk away. Are you sure?

  Ginger sighed, then spoke out loud. “No.”

  I crossed the roof and sat down beside her, facing the backyard as our bodies touched, shoulder and side. I couldn’t ignore the heat that sparked over my skin at the simple contact, even through her hoodie and the leather jacket of mine she was wearing. Red was my everything. She sighed again and moved a little closer, but kept her chin buried in her arms.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing,” Red replied, annoyed. But not with me. “We met at his house. We went to dinner. We talked. Well, I talked and he muttered. We met up with a few of his demon friends and their feeders. They talked and then I came home. I mean, I came here.”

  “This is still home for you, baby.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. That’s all.”

  This conversation wasn’t going as I’d planned. Her frustration was surging all over again. I had to try something else. “Come here.”

  As Ginger let her feet slide lightly down the shingled roof, I wrapped my arm around her waist, under the warm leather. Her arm came around my waist just the same and she laid her head on my shoulder. I kissed her ear. Instantly her heartbeat settled.

  “I just—I can’t get a read on him. It’s like it hurts him to look at me, but he still wants me around.”

  “Of course he does. Why wouldn’t he?”

  She peeked up at me. “You’re just saying that.”

  “No, I’m—”

  “You are.”

  “I’m sorry, querida.” It was my turn to sigh. I couldn’t help encouraging her. Making Red feel loved was my job and my honor. My words and intentions were genuine, but my reassurance didn’t change the truth of Ginger’s experience or her uncle’s. I’d barely spent any time with Seamus, but I knew the pain he carried. It was evident in his eyes every time he looked at Ginger. It wasn’t a pain that just went away. I would know. It was the kind of agony that thrived on resistance. The kind of pain that would force him to keep Ginger at arm’s length. He couldn’t get close to her. He’d already lost a young woman he’d loved.

  If I could sense that pain and reluctance from my vantage point, there was no way it didn’t slap Ginger in the face every moment they spent together. It was clear from the thoughts swimming around her mind and the tears she’d shed.

  “Freak act of violence ruined his life. He lost my mom forever and I’m this kid that he wanted when he was human, but I’m not even his. He hates my birth father and now I’m pain for him and he’s pain for me, but we need each other. He reminds me of my mother, like this version of this person I never got to know because she was already destroyed by the time I was born. But he knew her before the drugs and the stripping. All that crap. He’s the only good part of her left.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I’ll let that slide because you’re right. We are blood and I am pretty amazing,” she replied with a heated scowl.

  I tipped her chin up and kissed her soft lips. What was meant to be a peck quickly shifted to something more intense as her tongue slid into my mouth. The human side of my love was still upset and a little defensive. Our demons, though, couldn’t resist their instinctual draw.

  I’m not defensive, she growled, but she kept kissing me. Her hand slid up and over my breast and soon her demon took over. Mine followed suit, steadying us on the ridge of the roof as she continued to explore my body. Her hand journeyed lower, shoving its way into my pants, pushing my underwear aside. I was always wet for her, night and day, and now was no exception. I came easily, purring against her lips after only a few strokes of her fingers against my clit. That was all it took. Oftentimes, it took less. I wanted more, but instead we slowed down. This was not the right place for what else we had in mind.

  I pulled back, running my fangs down the side of her neck. She arched closer and squeezed my thigh.

  “Does this stop?” she asked quietly. “Actually, never mind. I’ve seen your thoughts. I know it doesn’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean we don’t have to talk about it. Being immortal doesn’t change the way you feel about certain things, like your family or your past. Being immortal just gives you more time to think about things.”

  “I don’t want to think anymore.”

  “I’m not sure how well the rest of you would work if you didn’t have this noodle running the show.”

  “You’re not helping, Mila. I want to be sad.”

  I smiled at her adorable pout and brushed her long red hair off her cheek. “Have you told him how you feel?”

  “It’s not about how I feel. It’s about how he feels, how he acts. What he’s not saying.”

  “What do you want him to say?” I felt a rush of anguish flow through her as she grasped on to a few truths that not only hurt her to acknowledge, but embarrassed her as well. I kissed her again.

  “I don’t know.” Another painful breath released.

  “That may be where you find a solution. You might need to decide what you really want from him and ask for it.”

  “Is it that simple?”

  “For your part? Yes. He may give you the answer you want or he may not, but at least you tried to bridge that gap. You can’t change who he is and how he feels, but you can let him know how he is making you feel.”

  “You and Dalhem went through something like this, didn’t you?” she asked, knowing only part of the answer.

  When Ginger and I were bound as na’suul, the strongest mating bond demons like us can form, she saw flashes of my whole life, knew me in a way no one else did, but only glimpses and pieces of what my life had been before her. The details were still up for discussion. I thought of the months after my family was taken from me, my parents and my brothers. My husband and my sons. The years Dalhem mourned for his demon-bourne twin who had sacrificed himself to save me. I dredged up the memories of the time Dalhem had pushed me away.

  “He sent me to live with Kina and her maker. He couldn’t bear—”

  “It was more than just looking at you. He couldn’t deal when it came to thinking about you and your life. Knowing that you existed meant that his brother didn’t.”

  I looked into her lovely green eyes, the emerald green she shared with her uncle. “Exactly.”

  “That’s how Seamus feels about me. But you and Dalhem didn’t talk about it.”

  “Because he’s not now, and never was, human. Because he’s Dalhem. Only his mate sees the true spectrum of his emotions, and even then, I’m not sure she gets it all.”

  Ginger pulled her hand out of my pants and licked her fingers. She knew exactly what that did to me. “I’m ready to g
o home.”

  We harnessed our demons and managed to say a proper good-bye to Linda and Fredo. Linda hugged us both and made us promise we’d be by later in the week for dinner. And less time spent on the roof. Then Ginger took my hand and vanished us back to our apartment.

  We ended up in our bedroom. I knew what Ginger wanted, but for a moment I had to check in with her. I knew her thoughts and her motivations, but sometimes we ignore what we need in order to get what we want. She started advancing on me, shedding her clothes as we slowly circled the bed.

  “Do you need to feed?” I asked her.

  “No. I’m fine for another day.” I knew she was telling the truth. “Is there a reason you’re trying to avoid having sex with me?” She was in my mind, but she wanted me to tell her out loud.

  “Uh, I think you’re still upset and you’re avoiding talking more about things. I don’t necessarily object, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’ll be okay when you have sex with me.” Her fangs gripped onto her bottom lip, which made every logical thought I’d ever had evacuate my brain. I shed her borrowed sweatshirt and took a few steps closer.

  “Promise me something.”

  She came to me and unzipped my jeans. With a quick tug, she yanked them down my legs. “Anything.”

  “Promise you’ll keep talking to me. I know we can see each other’s thoughts and sense each other’s emotions, but—”

  “I know.”

  I let my demon take control then, and as always the monster that shared control of my body and soul followed its queen’s lead and gave into her demands. She wanted me naked first, up against the dresser with my legs around her ass, my heels pressed to her thighs. My cunt and my breasts at her disposal to lick and bite and stroke.

  And then bent over the dresser where her fingers fucked me senseless and her fangs dug into the skin of my back. She drew blood for the first time that day. I came as she licked it away.