by Amy Cissell
“What old ways are we talking about?” I asked.
“The ley lines. They can serve as roads. They’re like…jet streams made of magical energy. They only flow one direction, so it’s not as simple as taking the interstate from Minneapolis to Chicago and back. You could take the interstate to Chicago, but you’d need to find a different way back. They’re faster than driving, although not as fast as flying. You just get in a ley line cart and travel between nodes. Once the gates are opened, most of the nodes will be staffed with people who will rent out vehicles for that purpose, provide directions, and guard the lines against bandits. It will be the most convenient way to travel. Gasoline will become a scarce commodity now that the technology that’s used to refine it no longer works.”
“Interesting,” I said. “I wish the lines were reliably open for travel now. I’m not looking forward to driving to New Orleans.”
“Finally,” Raj said. I looked at him.
“I wouldn’t think you’d be so eager to go there, knowing that whatever we learn there will change everything.”
“Ah yes, but after we finish with that city and that gate, you will finally come to my bed.”
“I said we’d talk about it.”
“I plan on being very eloquent,” he replied.
I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t keep the grin from spreading over my face. “I look forward to your compelling arguments.
“So, are we ready to go? Do we need to do anything else here to wrap things up?”
“I’ve cleared things up with Bruce, “Florence said. “He’s going to be a good boy and not make questionable deals anymore. I wish we’d been able to capture Finn, though. Once Raj took off with you, he disappeared. I’d like to know how much of what he’s doing is for the Dark Queen and how much is him taking initiative.”
I thought it over. “Finn was there, as were a bunch of Fae. Finn said he was on the payroll of the Dark Queen. If I had to guess, I would say that the Nature Preserve offensive was him acting for her. There was no capture order on me, and Finn wouldn’t have had me killed outright. But, he knows enough about us to know that we are more powerful than we appear, so I would guess that he understaffed the offensive. Not obviously, but just enough that we had a decent chance of winning.
“The actions at the gate, though, those were his own. I’m sure if he managed to kill or subjugate me, the Dark Queen would be pleased, but that was more his style. He’s working a few different angles and will have different strategies. The landmines at the last gate must be her. He would never just blow me up. Where’s the trash-talking fun in that? He’s like a bad Bond villain. He needs his enemies to admire his evil handiwork. Whatever’s going on in New Orleans, though, that could be either of them.”
“Or both,” Raj said.
“You said that Finn was a frequent guest of the vampire Michelle?” Petrina asked.
I blinked at the sudden change in subject and looked at her. Everyone else was, too. Raj did not look pleased, but the moment I thought that, his expression evened out and became impressively neutral.
Emma nodded. “Yes.”
“And Michelle is being hosted by the Dark Queen?” Petrina pressed on.
“Yes,” Emma said again.
Petrina looked thoughtful, and I could tell she was choosing her words very, very carefully. “It is possible that Michelle, who is not a paragon of virtue, even by the imperfect standards of the vampire community, would know something of my father that she could have shared with the Dark Queen or with Finn. Something that they could use in their bargaining with Marie.”
I wondered how many people knew about the sword. Was it an open secret in the vampire community? That’s not a question I needed an answer to right now, though. “You know Michelle?” I asked.
“It is not such a big world. When you’ve been around for a few hundred years, you start to know your contemporaries. We’re very political, and there are alliances forged and broken all the time. There was a time, three hundred years ago, that I was allied with Michelle.”
“And you shared secrets with her about your sire?” Emma looked shocked.
Petrina looked down at her and then sideways at her father. “Any secrets that Michelle knows about Raj she did not learn from me.”
My suspicion was growing, but I still wasn’t ready to ask any questions.
“That’s enough for tonight,” Raj said. “Will you be waiting until morning to start the drive so you can do it in daylight?”
“I’d rather,” Florence said. “And as the person who will do most of the driving, I think my opinion holds the most weight.”
“Let’s pick a meeting place, then,” Raj said. “Petrina and I will travel there tonight and meet you tomorrow evening when you arrive.”
“Let’s meet at those cabins outside of Roanoke,” Florence decided after looking at the map. “It will be a long day, but there shouldn’t be anyone on the roads.”
“Ohhh, the cabins. With the hot springs. And the fireplaces. Heaven,” I said.
Raj stood and walked over to me. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening.” He kissed me, his lips parting to let his tongue flick lightly over my lips before he stood back and walked with Petrina out the door.
We got to the cabins about an hour after dark the following night. As soon as Florence drove up, Raj appeared in the parking lot. We got out of the car, and he held up two keys. “I got the same two cabins as before. Petrina has decided to stay elsewhere tonight. I think she is hoping to find a warm meal attached to a warm body.”
“And where are you staying?” I asked.
His smile made me squirm. “I will watch over you while you sleep.”
I grinned. “I need food, first.”
“Come inside,” Raj said. I walked into the cabin and found two large pizzas, still warm, waiting for us.
“You are a god among men,” I breathed.
“That wood-fired restaurant was in this town,” Florence said. “He just picked up pizza.”
I handed her a pizza. “This is for you and Emma. Bye now!”
Florence took the pizza and the cabin key that Raj handed her, and they left. I had one glorious pizza all to myself. After decimating most of the pizza while Raj looked on in amusement, I settled back with a groan of satisfaction. Raj handed me a glass of wine. “Would you care to start the fire?” he asked.
“Can you?” I was curious.
“My control of this new gift is imperfect as yet. I’d rather not play with it in this confined space.”
“Oooh, safety first? Interesting.” I stood and stacked logs and twigs in the fireplace and then pulled the heat that ran through my veins to the surface, creating sparks of blue fire on my fingertips. I sent the sparks towards the wood, and it ignited immediately. I fed the fire until it was roaring away merrily, and then stepped back and sat next to Raj, reclaiming my wine.
“This is nice,” I said, leaning into him.
“This,” he said, grazing my neck with his teeth, “is nicer.”
I shivered against him. “Clothes on, still, Raj,” I reminded him.
“I can do all sorts of interesting things with our clothes on,” he said. “I’ve had a millennium to learn creativity.”
He captured my mouth with his and kissed me slowly. I opened my mouth to taste him. He tasted like red wine and cloves, and something about that drove me crazy. I ran my tongue along his teeth and felt his fangs elongate. I giggled when I realized that was the vampire equivalent of a hard-on.
“Oh, there’s no equivalent,” he said. He pulled me onto his lap where I felt very distinctly what he meant.
I slipped my arms around his neck and deepened our kiss. “Raj,” I breathed against him. “We have to go slow. I need this to be different than everything I’ve done before.”
“We are going slow,” he replied. I sucked the skin of his neck over a blue-tinged vein into my mouth and was rewarded with a moan and curse. I loved that I could make this thousand-ye
ar-old vampire squirm.
“That’s a two-way street, my sweet,” he said. His fangs grazed my neck, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to feel my blood pumping into his mouth. I leaned into him, pressing my neck into his mouth and my core harder against the prominent bulge in his pants. “I thought you wanted to go slow,” he said, laughing a bit as he moved away from my neck. He ran his hands down my torso and then up and under my sweater.
“As long as we keep our pants on, right?” I said, eyes glazing over as his hands found my breasts and tugged on my nipples. I ground harder into him. The rough cloth of my jeans was hitting me just right, and I was on the cusp of orgasm. Raj’s hands left my breasts and settled on my hips where he stilled my rocking motion.
“Eleanor,” he said, lifting me off him a couple inches. “How far can you go and still retain your ability to stop?”
I blinked a couple of times, trying to clear my mind of the lust-induced fog. “Not as far as you, apparently,” I said, trying—and failing—to not sound sulky. He laughed, and the low, sensuous sound sent shivers up and down my spine. I was aching for him but was clear enough now to keep myself from molesting him. A slow blush stained my cheeks, and Raj’s grip on my hips loosened.
“I love that,” he said. “And do not think that you are molesting me, for that implies that I am unwilling, and I am never that with you. I want you.” He tipped my chin down so we were looking into each other’s eyes. “But I do not want you to have regrets or second thoughts. When finally I take you, it will be because you have decided it is time, not because you are carried away in a moment.” His eyes flashed red, and I knew he was hungry.
“Hungry for more than just blood, my sweet,” he said. He let go of my hips and allowed me to settle back down on his lap. He was not nearly as excited as before. “I have extraordinary control over my blood flow,” he said. “Although you try my control in some areas.”
I grinned. “Good.” I slid off his lap and grabbed our wine glasses. “Refill?”
He nodded, and I returned with full glasses.
“Thank you,” I said as I snuggled in next to him.
“For what?”
“For stopping.”
“I was serious when I said I don’t ever want to be a regret. Even if, after New Orleans, you are not ready, I will not push. You and I are not only inevitable; we’re immortal. I don’t mind waiting a while for that.”
I drained my wine glass and reminded myself that I would cross the Isaac bridge when I came to it. Michelle, though. I had some questions.
“I don’t have answers yet, and I’d rather not lie to you,” Raj said.
“Fine. I might get in the hot tub. Join me?”
“Do you think it’s safe?” he asked.
“Most decidedly not,” I replied. “But I enjoy a little danger from time to time.”
We stripped down to our underwear—I wasn’t willing to test my will-power with complete nudity—and took the bottle of wine over to the hot tub. The tension of the day’s drive dissolved in the hot water. Raj set down his glass, turned my back towards him, and started kneading my shoulders. I groaned with the delicious pain his massage was causing and reminded myself again that I wasn’t ready to take this any further.
I turned suddenly and pressed up against his chest. “I like you, vampire,” I said.
“I like you, too, dragon.”
This time the kiss was sweet and lingering instead of hot and eager. The heat still burned between us, but it was under control. For the moment.
“Do you want your third drink?” I asked.
“I cannot tonight,” he said. “If I made it pleasurable for you, I would not be able to stop myself from pushing too far. We’re already skating the line.”
“Do you need to go elsewhere, then?”
He groaned and pushed himself away from me. “I want nothing more than to drink from you. The thought of taking blood from someone else leaves me cold.”
“Well, you are a walking corpse,” I teased. “Cold is pretty standard for the undead creatures of the night, isn’t it?”
“I do need to eat, or I will not be able to resist you much longer. You smell wonderful, and you taste even better. Never let another vampire drink from you.”
“Are you being territorial, or is this something more?” I wanted to push back into his arms but decided to play it safe. For now.
“Both,” he replied. “Fae blood is a bit addictive, that is true for all the magical creatures. Witches taste better than your run of the mill humans, and most shifters don’t taste good. There are exceptions. But your blood is so rich and powerful and creates a feeling like an opium-induced fog.”
“You smoke opium? I didn’t think drugs would work on vampires.”
“I don’t now, but did when I was human. It was an indulgence of the rich at that time, and I indulged.”
“Interesting. It’s so educational hanging out with old people.”
Raj growled, and this time I didn’t resist moving back into his arms. “Kiss me once more before you go?”
“I’ll be back soon,” he promised. Then he kissed me with all the longing that we were both feeling. I was gasping when he let go and was pleased to see that Raj took a shaky breath, too. He stood up and the water coursed down his legs, plastering his boxer briefs to his very, very hard body. I finally tore my eyes away from the erection straining at the fabric and saw that he was laughing at me. “See something you like?”
“I thought you had great control over your blood flow?” I retorted.
“Not around you, my sweet. Not around you.” I blinked, and he was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
WE SPENT TWO nights at the cabins outside of Roanoke, Virginia. No one seemed to be in any hurry to get to New Orleans. The roads were clear, but the towns were bustling. People were slowly but steadily adjusting to the new normal. I wondered what this would mean for population growth. Without electricity, a lot of medical interventions would be impossible. I tried not to think about it too much. Maybe there were ways to use magic to help out with the cancers and diseases and old age-related infirmities. Or maybe a return to environmental balance would help reduce the amount of disease. No more cancer!
The second evening in the cabins was much less scandalous than the first. All five of us gathered in Florence and Emma’s cabin to talk about our plans for the next six weeks. The period would encompass two full moons, and there were no shifter packs near New Orleans.
“Emma,” I offered, rather more tentatively than I was used to being, “I can be your Alpha for the full moons. I can help you control your wolf if you need it.”
I could see that she wanted to throw my offer back in my face, probably with a side of something scathing, but she didn’t.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. I was impressed with her control. She was going to be super dominant if she ever let herself believe she could. I was going to have to figure out how to get her in touch with Rebecca. I knew there were a couple other female Alphas (the lions didn’t count; they mostly just scared the shit out of me) and I thought it was high time there was a revolution.
“Just let me know. I’m happy to help.”
We decided to drive to Athens, Georgia the next day and then to Hattiesburg, Mississippi the day after that. From there, we were just over one hundred miles outside of New Orleans and still outside of Marie’s hard borders. Technically, she ruled most of the southeast, but you didn’t fall under her direct aegis until we crossed highway 98, just outside of Hattiesburg.
From there, it would be easy to plan the next steps. Raj wanted to meet with Marie alone, a plan nixed by everyone but Emma who didn’t seem to care too much. She seemed deep in thought about something, but since she wasn’t sharing and Raj wasn’t alerting me that something was up, I decided it was none of my business.
In the end, it was tentatively decided that Raj, Florence, and I would go see Marie. Petrina was our ace in the hole, so to speak. Finn had o
bviously seen her at the Ringing Rocks gate, but unless he was hanging out close enough to pick up Emma’s thoughts on the matter, he wouldn’t know who she was and what she was capable of. He was remarkably shortsighted when it came to his stupid schemes. We probably should’ve been more careful to keep her in the dark, but that didn’t seem very fair, either. She was a member of the team and deserved to be kept abreast of what we were doing and why. Speaking of not keeping Emma in the dark, she needed to know that Finn had a connection to her.
“Raj,” I said silently. “Can you tell Florence that I am going to tell Emma about Finn’s connection to her?”
He just looked at me, but I knew he’d followed through, because a minute later, Florence grabbed my arm and marched me out of the cabin and into my cabin. “What are you thinking, Eleanor?” she yelled.
“She can probably hear you if you yell,” I said. “Preternatural hearing.”
Florence took a deep breath and slowed her breathing, which not incidentally raised the air temperature about five degrees. “She is fragile.”
“She isn’t,” I said. “She’s strong. She’s in control. She’s dominant. She’ll be an Alpha someday. But even if none of those things were true, she is still a member of this team and deserves to know what’s going on, especially when it’s something that affects her so much. I hate withholding information, even if—no, especially if it’s for someone’s own good. Think about how she’ll feel when she finds out we’ve been keeping this from her. Now, we still can say we were waiting for her to adjust, but that excuse won’t hold much longer. Even if she was fragile—which she is not—she would not thank you for protecting her.”
Florence took a deep breath and said, with exaggerated and terrifying calm, “She will do something stupid.”
“Would you, if you knew and had time to process why you shouldn’t?”
“She is young; impulsive.”
“We’ll ignore her birth date, which I’m guessing is pretty close to yours, and address years lived. She’s experienced just over two decades of life but spent six months being tortured and used by vampires and Fae. She might not have the wisdom she should based on that birth date, but she has lived a lot of life in the time she’s had. Don’t discount her because she seems young.”
