She screamed. She didn't know what she said. Maybe his name. Maybe gibberish. She had two orgasms simultaneously, both of varieties she'd never experienced. Time stopped and as her body shattered, her mind soared. She knew every creature who had ever walked the mother's skin or grown in her flesh. She knew the number of humans she would save from death. She felt each penetration Oren would give her and every puncture the teeth of those children would make in her skin.
She rejoined her flesh to hear a flood of profanities pour from her mouth. She clamped her lips closed and enjoyed every tremor and quiver of the wane. When she was spent, Oren laid her on her back between his legs. Her feet twitched on either side of his hips. He was still inside her with no signs of exiting.
“Did I do that right?”
“Wha..aa..”
“The dirty talking...I have never done it before. The women in my past were more animal than artist and there was not much talk. I want to do what pleases you. I must.”
She flung her hands up over her head to hang off the foot of the bed. “You did great. I would have thought you had done it a million times. Did you like it...talking nasty to me?”
“Very much. I have already thought of some more things I would like to say for your hearing pleasure.” He reached out and flicked her clit, swollen and protruding from it's hood.
She jumped and the room tilted. “Did you make the earth move?”
Oren circled her nerve bud with his thumb as his tool powered up inside her. “No, Sinnis, that was you. You let the mother experience something she hasn't in ages: sexual climax. She wants her vessel to scream again in ecstasy and you will if I have any say, many times before the sun sets.”
It was going to be a long luxurious Sunday.
Chapter 10
Charly Boi pulled up in the cursed old car he was being forced to use since he'd hit that deer. He sat staring at Tara Kay's fixed stone home. It looked brand new. She hadn't mentioned renovations to him, but whatever had kept her from her trailer last night was a blessing. He hoped what he had just seen wouldn't upset her too much. He had stayed away to give her some time with her new beau, but had come today to visit and now he had bad news to give her.
He shifted up into park and killed the engine. Three bodies littered the front yard. He panicked for a split second before all three heads raised to investigate his arrival. Jesus, he had thought...never mind. He wouldn't even dignify his fears by naming them. He knew Special Kay wasn't capable of the things the people in town were saying she was doing out here. Although the men that were standing now looked gorgeous enough to be demons. They had been sunning in their boxers, except Oren, who was totally naked.
Charly Boi got out of the car (he refused to acknowledge it as his car) and Kay appeared on the porch with the slamming of his door. The two men he didn't recognize moved themselves between him and Kay, but Oren strode right up to him. The giant gathered up the newest arrival in a great big bear hug. Oren didn't seem uncomfortable in the least, giving the gay man a nude hug. Charly Boi tried to keep his eyes above the waistline. “It's good to see you too, Oren.” He smiled. “What happened to the clothes I got you?”
Oren shrugged. “Bitch, I'm at home. Who wears clothes at home?” Oren continued when Charly Boi just gaped at him. “Shit, you're the last fucking person I expected to be prudish about male nudity.”
The question had been rhetorical; Charly Boi hadn't expected an answer. The last time he saw Oren, the man had barely spoken five words in English. Now he talked in the same filthy way Special Kay did, with the ease of a sailer. Kay bound down the steps and crossed the yard in an instant. She hugged Charly Boi too. Thankfully she was dressed and so was Melody, who had appeared on the porch, but stayed in the shadows. He didn't need to see naked women. She waved and he waved back.
“Where you been? I expected to see you last night.”
He gestured to the car. “I wrecked the ride. God-damned deer. Auntie Bee let me borrow this pile of shit. If I'd known you were having a gorgeous man convention I would have found a way to come out sooner. I thought I was giving you some alone time with your new man.”
“Oh, I'm sorry.” Kay gestured to the two men behind her. “This is Hurrit, an old friend of Oren's, and this is Billy. He lived on the compound in Austin with me. Hurrit, Billy, this is my best friend Charly Boi.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Pleasure.”
He pumped hands with both. “Believe me, the pleasure is all mine.” He leaned over and spoke to Kay out of the side of his mouth, but made it loud enough for everyone to hear. “Please tell me that one of your friends is in the market for a very flexible strong black man with a big cock.”
Kay punched him playfully in the arm. He tried not to flinch. It wasn't sexy to be hurt by a tiny girls punch but if she was going to keep hitting him so hard he was going to ask her to stop slugging him in front of anyone. He had a yellowing bruise from last time. “Straight to the fucking point, as always.” She shook her head and pursed her lips at her friend's candor. “Billy's got a spell on him that won't allow him to fuck anyone but his true mate. Hurrit could be bi. I don't know. Come up to the house. I'll get us some tea.”
Kay went inside with Melody. Billy and Oren returned to their places in the yard. They weren't finished tanning. Billy didn't look like he could get much darker. Charly Boi wondered if Oren knew what sun did to tattoo ink. The ornate man didn't seem too worried. Hurrit slipped his brown arm under Charly Boi's arm, around his waist and urged him toward the house. His long silky black hair tickled Charly Boi where his sequined wife-beater left his skin exposed.
Hurrit spoke as they walked towards the house. “In my tribe, as with most of that time, a person like you, with the body of a man and the spirit of a woman, would be highly revered. With the best of both genders (men's bodies are strongest, while the spirit of women hold that title), you would have been a holy man, a shaman.”
Charly Boi should have been slightly insulted by Hurrit's assumption that gay men had the spirit of a woman, but he recognized the man's compliment for what it was. There was just a cultural difference. He sat in the porch swing and Hurrit sat on the banister in front of him. The native American perched with an unbelievably straight back, his hair flowing down behind him, framing his form against the light of Sunday afternoon.
He used his bare foot to push the swing back. When it came closer to him on the up swing, Hurrit continued. “I admire anyone with the bravery to live their unconventional life in the open in a place like this. The past few generations have not treated your kind with the respect all humans deserve.”
Charly Boi noticed that Hurrit had said 'your kind' not 'our kind'. “So, you're not gay.” He said it as a statement.
Hurrit laughed. “I'm not anything that definable. I have had sex with men and women and everything in between during my long life.” Charly Boi didn't think Hurrit looked a day over 25, but native Americans could age better than other races. “My lust is dampened as of late, but when it rages, it lies in other arenas.”
Charly Boi had no idea what the man was talking about but he nodded his head like he understood. Kay came out with two glasses of sweet tea, saving him from having to prove his comprehension. Hurrit stopped the swing with his foot, holding it still as Kay sat beside Charly Boi. When she was settled and had handed over the glass, Hurrit swung his legs over the banister, jumped down and joined Billy and Oren in the yard.
Charly Boi gulped down his whole glass before turning to Kay. She was smirking at him. “Hot, huh?” She sipped her tea.
“And bothered.” He remembered what he came here for, as if Hurrit's distance had unclouded his mind. “You'll never guess who I got a call from last night.” He didn't wait for her to guess before telling her. “Israel Lovejoy. Nothing like getting a call from your school crush to upset your Saturday night plans. Especially when he doesn't call about you but your friend.”
“He called about me?”
“Well,
we talked for a while before he got around to telling me that you're why he called. You haven't been answering your phone or returning their calls. They've been worried about you.”
“After over a year they're worried about me?! Yeah right. Fuck them. They want something, don't they?”
“There's this woman...”
“I fucking knew it.”
“...and she's really sick.”
“So sick that Camilla can't heal her?”
“Nothing's worked. Ingrid's tried everything. They thought you might be able to grow something.”
Kay stewed for a minute. The Daughters didn't care about her. They didn't miss her. They didn't even support her brand of magic. She and her blood magic had been cast out and now they needed her to do what they couldn't. She wanted to call and tell them to go fuck themselves, but this woman could probably die without her help. Tara Kay used her magic to help everyone. It was a personal creed, one that had gone against the wishes of the Daughters' abbess, Nathalia. No matter how she felt about Nathalia, Kay would do what she could to help a fellow witch. “Fine. I don't even know if my magic works anymore, but I'll try. I need to talk to Ingrid and maybe Camilla first. Did Israel say what she was sick with?”
Charly Boi shook his head.
“I can't tailer make a cure when I don't know the disease. I'll have to get my cell from the trailer. It's gotta be dead. I haven't charged it in six months. Hell, I don't even know where the charger is. At least the trailer isn't too big. Not a whole lot of places it can be.”
“That's the other thing I need to talk to you about. Your trailer's gone.”
“Somebody stole that piece of shit!?”
“No. Somebody burned it.”
***
The trailer that had served Kay as her home for so many years was gone. It was burned to the ground. Thankfully this had been a wet year and the fire had put itself out a few feet from the trailer. Anything could have started a fire like this. The wiring probably wasn't up to code. The kitchen appliances used propane. The generator ran on gas. But the blackened cross standing in the yard was a giveaway that this fire had not been an accident.
Someone, or maybe a lot of someones, had started this fire and their message was clear. Tara Kay wasn't wanted in Calum. The people who burned her trailer wanted her gone. She could leave or she could die. Maybe they thought she'd be inside when they torched it.
“Bastards,” Melody said, one arm around Kay's shoulders, trying to console her. It reminded Kay that this had happened to Aunt Melody too. When she had taken up with Gerald, a black man, the KKK had burned a cross in his yard. Gerald had moved away, terrified not just because of the clan but because the crime went completely unnoticed and unpunished. He had begged Melody to come with him. They could start a new life in a new city where no one cared about the difference in the color of their skin. Kay had never understood why Melody hadn't gone with Gerald. Melody loved him, she knew that then, but now Kay knew why her aunt couldn't leave Calum
She had to stay because of Tara Kay.
Kay turned and hugged Aunt Melody. When she did, Kay felt something tear loose inside and she started to cry. She really sobbed. Melody turned them so that no one else could see her ward. She knew Kay prided herself on staying in control, staying strong. That's what all the language was about. She cursed to fool everyone into thinking she was tough.
Tara Kay didn't know why she was crying. It certainly wasn't over the loss of the trailer. She'd hated that thing. It was a constant reminder of her parents abandonment. It was a mark of shame, poverty and failure. She was just overcome with a feeling of sadness for this town, it's people, their hate filled lives, and Melody. Mostly her tears were for Aunt Melody.
Kay didn't have much of anything but what she did have had been in that trailer. Her grandparents' wedding picture, with Mamaw in her black dress, because it was the only new dress she had at the time, and Papaw in his navy uniform, was gone. All her baby teeth, that she'd kept in a little silk bag because her parents were too strung out to even notice that she'd lost them or remember to play tooth fairy, were destroyed. The beaded necklace her oldest sister had made so that she would quit dropping her pacifier was now ash. Kay couldn't remember that or any other sibling's name and now every link she had to her was burned.
Oren watched as his Sinnis cried. He would never let this happen again. He would go into every home of every occupant in this horrible town and remove every memory, every bad feeling of Tara Kay, every desire to see her harmed. He would start with those three boys who chased her on the night she woke him with blood. She would be a goddess in Calum. They would worship her as he did.
“Maybe we should all go to Austin. Maeve will give us a place, I know it. She's in charge now. She doesn't have the same prejudice against men as Nathalia did.” Billy suggested. He really wanted to go home. He was going to call his mother as soon as they were done here.
Kay's tears dried. She wasn't going anywhere. This was her family land. Kiyahwe said she needed to be here, her and her army of children, to defend against the coming of the Shinar. No one was going to keep her from doing Kiyahwe's will.
Oren spoke up. “This Nathalia, you say she calls herself by another name now?”
“Yeah, Ereshkigal of the Kafziel family line.”
“Then she is reincarnate of Ereshkigal, who will never allow me or my children to live in peace. Her laws forbid their creation. Her hunters killed my progeny after her death. She fears their thirst for blood and sex is a sign of the beast. That is why I started my family here in the new world with Hurrit, where her warriors would not think to go. She cannot know of you, vrykolak, or Sarrum Sinnis TeRAay's creation, or of Hurrit and his vitala family or she will not rest until you are all dead. She will kill you herself, if given the opportunity.”
Hurrit obviously knew of the danger, but Billy and Kay stared at Oren's proclamation. Sure, Nathalia was a bossy bitch sometimes but she wasn't a killer. Melody stood expressionless. They had all forgotten that Charly Boi wasn't one of them until he yelled, “Somebody wanna tell me what the heck ya'll're talking about?”
***
The decision was an easy one. It really wasn't a decision. Sarrum Sinnis Tara Kay couldn't live without Charly Boi and Kiyahwe had already given her carte blanch to 'make' all those she deemed fit. Charly Boi didn't really want to be a vampire but who could resist living forever in a youthful body. Hurrit said that if Kay was the one to make the conversion, Charly Boi might never feel the need to drink blood. Without that horror and with being able to walk in the sun, there really was no down side.
Hurrit had taken Charly Boi to Kay's bedroom to be alone. He had been the one to draw from Charly. There had been sex involved. That was apparently very common. If Kay had needed to drain Billy before giving him her blood, they probably would have done it too. Kay was convinced she could give blood without the bloodlust taking over. Hurrit was not as sure but had agreed to play his part and allow her to try. When Kiyahwe had told her it was time, Kay and Oren joined them.
The room was at capacity. Oren hugged the wall as Kay knelt beside the bed where Hurrit and Charly Boi laid. Her friend's breathing was labored, ragged. She could hear how close his heart was to stopping. He looked up at her with eyes that somehow looked both drugged and panicked.
“Help me sit him up, Hurrit.”
“He can draw from your wrist, just like Billy did.”
Kay shot Hurrit a look that made the 6000 year old vampire lurch into action. He sat up, bringing Charly with him. They sat on the edge of the bed, Hurrit spooning Charly's back, Charly sitting between Hurrit's knees and Kay kneeling between Charly's facing him.
“Billy was dying and unconscious. Charly is awake and aware and capable of making the decision. He will bite me himself. He will know that he made the decision and that nothing was pushed on him. He will drink from my neck because he deserves nothing less.”
Charly Boi was too weak to lift his arms. His Special Kay move
d her hair out of the way and leaned her head to one side. All he had to do was let his head fall forward and his mouth was on her neck. He bit down with every drop of strength he had left, doubting he could even break the skin. He didn't taste the first swallow, but it filled him with the power Hurrit had taken from him and more. Charly Boi wrapped his arms around Kay and held her close as he swallowed her blood in gulps.
Kay willed the wound closed and pulled away from Charly, her second child of the light. Hurrit laid them both back down on the bed. Charly Boi was thankfully unconscious for his conversion and would wake a new man. Kay made it through the conversion without begging for release. She didn't have to fuck those who took her blood. She could choose who slated her sexual thirst.
“I need to be alone with my king.”
Oren gathered her up into his arms and took her out of the house.
***
“Mate-sick? I've never heard of it.”
Kay talked on the phone while Billy ran with Melody. He was going to tire his beast out before driving to Austin. Kay was sending him with the medicine if she could successfully make it. The generator hadn't been destroyed in the fire. Billy brought it to the house and used it to charge his cell phone. It had all of the compound phone numbers on it. Kay chose to talk to Ingrid.
“If it has to do with matchmaking, can't Maeve do something?...She did? And what happened?...Okay, okay. What have you tried so far?...Did you mix in any of the rose w...Well, what about the pain killing herbs I left you?...No, I'm not coming back. I have a place here, a purpose. I'll see what I can grow. It's about five and a half hours from here. Billy should be there before ten tonight...That's up to him. I think he'll stay for a little while at least. He's really been homesick...I know, Ingrid. I'm sorry it ended that way too...me too. I'll get a new phone soon and I promise to answer it when you call... You too. 'Bye.”
Ishtar Rising Page 15
