I let them all talk, sitting back and closing my ears to the noise while I mulled it over.
Christian had thought Joy was his Beloved. She clearly was in love with the big man named Raphael, but just as clearly Christian was a very dear friend of hers. I suspected from the warmth that lit the edges of his eyes when he spoke of her that the feeling was returned.
The question was, did his feelings for her go beyond those of a close friend? Was he hiding a broken heart behind a façade of friendship? Or worse, was he on the rebound, willing to cling to any warm body to ease the pain of his unrequited love? I didn't know enough about the Dark Ones to know just how this whole Beloved thing worked, but I gathered that it was a pretty serious matter, and Christian thinking Joy was the woman meant to redeem his soul had to mean he had some pretty strong feelings for her.
That said, why did that thought bother me so much?
"Okay, enough, I get the idea," I said, trying to bring some order to the chaos around me. "Now maybe one of you can explain these steps. What exactly is a Joining? I don't think I've ever heard of that."
Joy looked worried, and absentmindedly ate six cookies. "The steps are steps to Joining. A Dark One Joins with his Beloved—that is, they have to complete the seven steps, and then they are Joined."
I had a horrible suspicion I knew what she was driving at. "You're talking about sex, right?"
Joy choked on her cookie. Roxy reached over and pounded on her back a few times until Joy stopped sputtering and coughing.
"If you wouldn't be such a pig, you wouldn't have this problem. Sex is the fifth step, but the others don't have anything to do with it," Roxy said. "Well, the third step does, but that's just kissing, so I don't count that."
I rubbed a weary hand over my forehead. I felt more than a little like Alice in the company of people who spoke only in riddles. "What exactly are the steps? Maybe if I know what they are, I'll understand this Joining better."
"Oh, that's easy," Roxy answered, counting off her fingers. "First step: the Dark One marks his Beloved. I assume Christian's already done that with you, yes?"
I gnawed on my lip. "Marked how?"
"Have you had any visions recently?" Joy asked. "Any times when you felt as if your mind had merged with Christian's?"
I smiled a grim little smile. "No one gets into my mind without my permission. Guarding my mind from others was the first thing I learned."
"Really?" Joy looked at Roxy. Roxy looked back at Joy. Esme looked at her cat. Mr. Woogums licked his butt. "Well, I don't know what to say in that case. With me, everything Christian felt and saw, I felt and saw. And… er… likewise."
I felt a stab of something that bore a remarkable resemblance to jealousy. I squelched the feeling immediately. I was not jealous of Joy. Christian did not mean anything to me. "I did have a dream about him. Dreams are often the only way to get to someone with a strongly guarded mind. We ward ourselves as best we can before we go to sleep, but there's a certain lack of control when you're sleeping." Which was one of the reasons I seldom slept at night. Nighttime was traditionally the domain of those creatures who sought control over Summoners' minds.
"A dream? An erotic dream, you mean?" Roxy asked.
I laughed. "Hardly. He was covered in blood and had a hundred cuts all over his body. I thought he was a tortured spirit when I first saw him."
"You saw him?" I nodded to Joy. "Oh, well, then, that definitely is a marking, wouldn't you say?"
"Definitely," Esme answered for Roxy, nodding her head vigorously. Her little sausage curls bounced around as she beamed a happy smile at all of us.
"The second step is protection from afar," Joy said.
"And we saw that well enough last night," Roxy added.
I made a noncommittal face. Two out of seven was statistically still a coincidence. I'd seen much stranger things.
"The third step's the good one—exchange of bodily fluids."
"Ew!"
"It sounds gross, but it's not," Roxy reassured me. "Really, it just means kissing. You know." She tipped her head toward Esme. "Enchfray issingkay."
"My third husband was very good with his tongue," Esme told her. "He could tie a cherry stem into a knot."
There just wasn't much any of us could say to that.
"The fourth step," Joy said as she rested a teacup on her belly, "is when the Dark One entrusts the heroine with his life by giving her the means to destroy him."
"Hey, wait a minute, I want to find out if Allie and Christian have been doing the tongue waltz."
"Roxy! That's none of your business!"
"Look, sister, I flew all the way over here just to help you help Christian, leaving my darling husband to fend for himself for seven whole nights. It is too my business. So…" She turned to me. "Have you guys locked lips or not?"
"I… I…"
"She's blushing," Esme said to Roxy. "I would hazard a guess that is a yes. And after what I saw of Christian last night—such a nice boy, even if he is a Dark One—I can't blame her. If I were thirty years younger, I might try taking him away from her."
There's nothing so annoying as a ghost who exudes coyness.
"The fifth step," Joy said firmly, giving her friend a stern look, "is the second exchange."
"Bet you can't guess what that means." Roxy sniggered.
"Stop it, Rox; you're being obnoxious. You don't have to embarrass Allie. The sixth step is where the Dark One seeks his Beloved's assistance to overcome his darker self, and the final step, the one that redeems his soul and ends his torment is the final exchange—a blood exchange—after which the Beloved offers herself as a sacrifice so that he might live."
"Don't worry; Christian won't actually let you sacrifice yourself. You just have to make the effort. That's what Joy did, anyway, and it worked."
I stifled the little voice inside me that said I'd heard just about enough of Joy and Christian's relationship for one day. "It all sounds rather… oh, I don't know, epic somehow."
"It is in a way, isn't it?" Joy agreed. "There is a strong element of selflessness and absolute love to the whole thing that makes it seem like one of those lengthy medieval romantic poems, but I can assure you that it is a very serious matter to Christian. He is, for lack of a better word, wounded, and can't be healed until his Beloved agrees to save him."
"Ah. Well, that's fascinating, but I have to say, all this drives home the point that Christian is absolutely right. I'm not the epic story type. I'm not Beloved material. I'm a Summoner, pure and simple, and any… er… feelings of a warmer nature—which I don't have—are purely coincidental."
"Uh-huh. No warm feelings, eh? Is that why you blushed so hard over the kissing question?"
"Roxy, stop teasing her." Joy looked at me with a puzzled frown. "Perhaps we're wrong. Perhaps you really aren't Christian's Beloved, although I could have sworn… Well, it doesn't matter. If you are, you'll find a way to work things out, and if you aren't, we'll simply keep looking for the woman who'll save him."
Something twinged deep within me. I ignored it just as I ignored all of the rest of the strange things my mind was trying to tell me. "Would you mind if I asked why you're so involved in finding this Beloved person? I mean, isn't Christian really the best person to do that?"
"Yes," came a familiar, deep, beautifully resonant voice from the door behind me. I didn't bother turning around to look at him; I was too busy telling my body it was not going to leap up out of the chair and throw itself into his arms.
"Christian," Joy cried in delight. She peered over her shoulder at the window. "Is it dark so soon?"
"Not quite; there are another twelve minutes until sunset," he answered, setting a black fedora, black silk scarf, and ankle-length black coat on a table before advancing into the room. "Good evening, ladies. Joy, you look glowing as ever. Roxy, I see the fine hand of your husband in that lovely gown. Please tell him again what exquisite fashion taste he has. Esme, what an unexpected delight. You are charm personifie
d."
He turned to look at me. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. He took his time letting his gaze travel down from my hair—pulled back in a scrunchy—to my rose-trellis sweater with the yarn bobbles, and farther down to my jeans, which I suddenly realized had a big old mud splash on the ankle. I tried to cross the clean leg in front of it before he saw, but I could tell by the sweep of his eyebrow as it swooped up his forehead that he'd seen anyway, drat it all.
"Allegra, that is a very pretty, very feminine sweater. Dare I hope you wore it on my account?"
"No, you dare not. I wore it because it had bobbles that it turned out I needed today. You had nothing to do with it."
"Put in my place, and very handily, too," he said with a smile that melted every single one of my traitorous internal organs.
"Christian, I don't understand. How can you be out if the sun hasn't set?" Joy was back to looking worried again.
He glanced at me, then seated himself in the chair next to hers. "I awoke early. After I dined—"
"He keeps a whole ton of servants in his London house just so he can feed off them," Roxy leaned forward to whisper to me. She must have seen the horrified look on my face, because she quickly added, "Oh, he wipes their memories clean, so they don't remember a thing about it. They don't suffer at all."
"—I decided I would accept your kind invitation as Allegra and I have plans for the evening. I assure you I was well protected against the elements for those few seconds I was exposed to sunlight." His gaze dropped to my jeans. Unwittingly I brushed at my legs, then stopped when I realized what I was doing.
"If you keep cocking your eyebrow like that, one day it's going to freeze in that position," I snapped. "You needn't look at me as if I'm a reject from the ragpicking farm. I don't have any girl clothes with me, so if jeans and a bobble rose-trellis sweater don't meet your exacting standards, I'll be happy to go sit in St. Paul's Cathedral and see if I can't Summon Sir Christopher Wren."
"Really?" Roxy asked. "You can do that? Cool!"
"I was joking," I said.
"Oh, you poor thing, of course you don't have any nice dresses with you. I forgot that you're just visiting, and unlike some people I can name"—Joy thinned her lips at Roxy—"I bet you don't travel with a metric ton worth of luggage. I'd be happy to let you borrow one of my dresses, but I'm sure they're much too large for you. Roxy?"
Roxy eyed me. "I think she's too big for anything I have."
My cheeks flared up at the implication. "No, please, it's not that I didn't have room in my bag for any dresses; I just don't own any."
"It's true, I've seen what's in her wardrobe. Nothing but blue jeans and those dreadful shapeless athletic trousers. I've tried to tell her the importance of a proper lady's wardrobe, but she became very snappish with me. Why, the state of her undergarments alone would drive off any man of taste." Esme suddenly realized who was sitting next to her and smiled a barracuda smile at Christian.
His eyes did an amazing little twinkling thing that pooled heat deep inside me.
I slumped my shoulders in defeat. When my bras and undies became the topic of polite conversation, I knew it was time to go book myself a room in the Old Summoner's Home.
"Gotcha," Roxy said. "I understand completely. The only reason I wear dresses is because Richard—that's my husband; he's a doll—likes me in them. But if I had my druthers, I'd be just like you, slouching around in comfy old clothes and not caring how bad anyone thinks I look."
"I just can't take you anywhere, can I?" Joy asked as she threw a muffin at Roxy. "Apologize, you idiot!"
"For what?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. If you don't mind, I think I'll be taking Esme and Mr. Woogums home now." I looked at Christian and gave him a toothy smile. "I have a pair of black wool pants, if that will soothe your delicate sensibilities. They're the dressiest thing I brought."
He rose when I did. "I will be happy to escort you to your hotel, and thence to a restaurant for a little dinner before we got to the theater."
"Oooh, dinner and a show! How come you never take us to dinner and a show?"
He smiled at Roxy. "I would spend the entire evening fending off the hordes of your admirers."
She fanned herself and grinned back at him. "You gotta love all that suave debonairness!"
I decided not to comment on that. "I'm quite capable of returning to my hotel by myself."
"I have no doubt that you are. I will feel more comfortable, however, if I were to see you safely there before we leave for the evening."
"We would be delighted to have your company," Esme told him as she stood and adjusted the tie on her bathrobe. "A gentleman's protection can never be undesirable."
I snorted. "Regardless, I will survive without his attendance."
"I insist on accompanying you."
"You can stuff your insistence where the sun doesn't shine," I said sweetly.
Esme gasped. "Allie! A lady never refers to a gentleman's rectal area, no matter how provoked she might be!"
Christian turned to Joy with his hands spread wide. "You see what I must put up with?"
"Oh, my, he shouldn't have said that." Esme shook her head. Joy and Roxy both nodded their agreement.
"Put up with?" I stalked over to where he stood and glared up at him. "Put up with? No one is asking you to put up with me, Count Chocula. In fact, I'm willing to bet you I could live out the rest of my life quite happily without ever seeing you again, so you can take your put up with and stick it alongside your insistence!"
"Dear, as I mentioned, a lady—"
Christian took a step closer to me, his eyes lit from within with something that felt a lot to my guarded mind like unadulterated fury. His breath fanned over my face as his voice wrapped me in unbreakably strong silken bonds. "I have tolerated your abuse only because I realize how insecure you are regarding your appearance, not to mention frightened of what I represent, but I will entertain your rudeness no more. You have done considerable damage to my plans without offering an apology, you have pushed yourself into my life without my express desire that you do so, and you have met every kindness on my part with uncouth retorts and juvenile remarks. Enough! It is at an end. You might not be my Beloved, but there is a bond between us, even if you will not admit to it. Because it is the way of Dark Ones to protect their women, I will escort you to your hotel, and about that there will be no further discussion."
Have I mentioned that I detest bossy, controlling men? Really, it was his verbal attack on me that prompted me to do what I did. I'm not proud of it, but I am a survivor. I lived once in the control of a man, terrified to do anything even remotely against his wishes lest the repercussions (almost always involving physical pain) fell upon me, and I had made a solemn vow as I stood over Timothy's lifeless body that I would never again give anyone that sort of power over me.
I thanked Joy for the tea.
"I'm sure we'll be seeing more of you," she answered with a quick glance at Christian. He raised an eyebrow at her. I ground my teeth at the obvious wordless byplay that was going on between the two of them, then stopped when I realized what I was doing.
I plucked a bobble from my sweater.
"Say good-bye, Esme," I said as I made the keeper warding signs over the bobble. I turned my back on everyone to silently speak the words (I hate being watched when I practice my art), then turned back when the bobble glowed with Esme's light. Gathering up my coat, I ignored Christian when he did the same. Roxy chattered beside me as we walked to the front door. With my right hand hidden in front of me, I sketched a series of confining symbols on the door. I walked through the door, holding my breath and praying that the simple spell would work on a vampire as it did on others.
Christian stopped at the door, the oddest expression on his face. He frowned and tried to push through the barrier my spell had woven.
"Christian? What's the matter?"
His eyes narrowed on me as I smiled. "What have you done?"
"Me? Juvenile, rude, insecure, frightened little me? Whatever can you mean?"
His voice dropped to the sexiest growl I'd ever heard. It sent little shivers of delight traipsing up and down my spine. "You have done something to the door, Summoner. Something to keep me from passing through it."
I flashed a few more teeth in my smile as I leaned in close to him. "Never, ever think you can tell me what to do. I have a mind and a will of my own, and never again will I allow anyone to take that away from me."
I turned with a cheery wave to a worried-looking Joy, and made my way out of the building to the drizzle-damped streets. A few minutes later I sat back with a sigh in a taxi I'd been lucky to find disgorging its occupants, wondering how long it would take Christian to realize that my limited spell-casting power—Summoners usually know only those spells that are related to their own personal protection, or have to do with the binding of spirits—applied only to the front door of Joy's flat, and not any of the other means of exit. I suspected it wouldn't take him long to figure it out.
"I hate it when I'm right." I sighed as I closed the hotel room door. Christian stood before my wardrobe, poking through the clothes contained therein.
"Esme was also right. The state of your underthings is deplorable. Why do you not wear silk and satin, as other women do?"
I set Esme's bobble down on the small desk that graced a corner, and peeled off my coat. "Look, I realize we both said some things better left unsaid. For my part, I apologize for telling you to shove your insistence…" I waved my hand toward his midsection. "You know. That was rude of me, and I'm sorry for it, but you have to understand that I just do not like dominating, arrogant men."
He walked to me, wrapping his hand around my neck and tipping my chin up with his thumb. I fought the urge to strike back, and just stood there, passive, letting him examine my face.
"You did not tell me that you had been treated ill in your past. Who was the person who took your mind and will away from you?"
Sex and the Single Vampire do-2 Page 9
