Serpent's Kiss

by Thea Harrison

  She rolled her eyes even as, he was delighted to note, she kissed him back. “Oh, the age thing? You just had to go there, didn’t you?”

  “Just teasing, darling,” Rune said. “I’ve seen you at those inter-demesne functions. You wear classic black Chanel with frightening aplomb. When you’re not wearing those catastrophic muumuus.”

  “Catastrophic muumuus?” She began to tap her bare foot again. God, he loved that slender arched, imperious foot. It was so pretty, so tempestuous. He looked at her bare toenails.

  “I forgot something,” Rune murmured to Gia. “Pick up half a dozen shades of nail polish when you go out, will you?”

  Gia gave him a sidelong, conspiratorial smile. “I took the liberty of ordering a few bottles in different shades when I placed your Guerlain order.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “Did you get some Christian Louboutin boots?”

  “Did I get some boots,” Gia said. She held up a Saks package that she placed on the bed.

  “Outstanding,” said Rune.

  “Let me take a wild guess,” Carling said. “You brought boots, jeans and a T-shirt.”

  Gia gave her a wide-eyed look. “Well . . . yes, that’s one of the outfits I brought.”

  Carling strode into the room. “Fine,” said Carling. “I said I would try something new, and I will. Hand it all over.”

  Rune watched in fascination as suddenly Gia and the bellhops revolved around Carling. She redefined every social space she walked into. Goddamn, he thought, I don’t love you a little. I might actually love you a lot.

  Gia searched through the rack of women’s clothes, pulled out a pair of jeans and handed them to Carling along with the Saks package containing the boots. “7 For All Mankind skinny jeans, ankle-cut to show off the boots,” Gia explained. “And here’s an asymmetrical silk crepe de chine flared tank top by Behnaz Sarafpour that I thought would go really well with the outfit.”

  “Outstanding,” Carling said crisply. She muttered in Rune’s head, Whatever the hell any of that meant. You know I’m only doing this to humor you, don’t you? He covered his mouth to muffle a laugh as she continued aloud, “Lingerie?”

  Gia handed her an assortment of silken underwear. Carling swept out of the room with her arms full. She gave Rune a look from under lowered brows as she passed. Then she disappeared into the bedroom she had claimed. A moment later he heard the bathroom door close.

  Rune stood aside as Gia and the bellhops came out of the bedroom, and he signed the invoice the shopper gave him, then dug his wallet out of the duffle to tip all of them. Gia tore off his copy of the invoice and scribbled on it. “I’ll go out now to pick up the rest of the things,” the shopper said. “Here’s my cell number. Call me any time, if you need anything.” He took the paper she offered. Gia held on to it for a moment, and met his eyes. “Anything at all.”

  “Got it,” said Rune, with a dry smile. “But I am quite sure after you run your errands, you will have gotten us everything we need.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” said Gia. “But you can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  Carling could blame a girl for trying. She was paying attention, and of course she could hear the conversation in the living room perfectly from the bathroom. She might have been tempted to go out and kick a girl’s ass for hitting on a man who was, to all appearances, with another woman, except she had already shrugged out of the bathrobe, and she was tired of being other people’s karma. That girl didn’t need Carling’s involvement. She would crash someday on a rocky shore of her own making, because that’s what people did, Carling included.

  Carling had something much better to do. She looked at the pile of things she had brought in with her and prepared to be entertained.

  First, the lingerie.

  Oh. Oh my.

  Black silk, French-cut knickers that slid over her thighs as light as a lover’s whisper. A matching silk camisole that framed her breasts and emphasized her narrow waist.

  Carling swallowed, staring at the beautiful feminine body in the mirror. The lingerie gave her a sexy look in an entirely classy way. She turned away from the sight and picked up the jeans. Here’s where she could start to chuckle.

  But as she slid her legs into the jeans, the denim felt butter-soft and pliable. As she secured the fastening at her waist, they molded to her like a custom-made leather sheath molding to a hand-forged Spanish steel blade. She twisted, squatted, and lifted each leg sideways, and the butter-soft jeans moved with her easily, like a second skin.

  Damn. She might actually love these jeans.

  She turned to the black T-shirt with an entirely new respect. She slipped it on, and it flowed over her body, loose yet feminine, with a simple flared shape, a lacy scooped neck, and cut-out shoulder straps.

  By the time Carling opened the box containing the boots, she had turned quite thoughtful. And the boots did not disappoint. They were Italian-made, calf-length black suede with wraparound straps and buckles at ankles and the arches. The heels were nearly four inches in height, and the soles were fire-engine red.

  She stood straight and stared down her legs at the boots. She felt very tall, with every curve on her body exposed. She looked in the mirror. A flirtatious, fashionable, feminine, young-looking, big-eyed stranger looked back.

  The woman in the mirror looked . . . Fun?

  That couldn’t be right. Carling had never been fun in her life.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know who the hell you are,” she told the woman in the mirror. “But you look mighty cute.”

  Rune called out, “What did you say?”

  “I’m not sure about this,” she said as she walked out of the bathroom. “It’s been very amusing, but—”

  Rune was already in the bedroom, clad in black.

  Carling jerked to a stop so abruptly she nearly fell off her boots.

  He was standing in profile by the bed, in the process of buttoning up what looked to be a hand-stitched shirt that molded to his powerful, lean muscled torso. Clothes hangers and tags littered the top of the nearby dresser. The black highlighted his bronzed skin, and the rich coppery and gold highlights in his hair. The chic cut to the linen trousers emphasized his long, graceful legs. A matching suit jacket hung off the bedroom doorknob. No matter how deplorably he dressed, nothing could disguise the fact that he was already elegantly made and handsome, but these clothes lent him an air of sophisticated severity that came so far out of left field she felt sucker punched all over again.

  Her mouth worked. It might be time to say something again. Was it her turn in the conversation? She couldn’t remember.

  “Uh,” she said.

  “What’s wrong, darling? Are the boots not comfortable?” Rune asked. He turned toward her, frowning, and his eyes widened. “Well, I knew it had to be good,” he murmured. “The reality is so much better than I imagined.”

  “You, um,” she said.

  “I, what?” He bent to pick up something at his feet. It was another shopping bag.

  “You didn’t dress the way you usually do.”

  “I wanted to look nice for you.” He walked toward her, his big swordsman’s body flowing like a panther’s.

  He had thrown away his T-shirt and dressed up for her. Her voice came out all husky and wrong, as she accused, “You said you were going to buy yourself new jeans.”

  “I did that too,” Rune said. He stopped in front of her and let his gaze travel down the length of her body. A quiet smile touched the corners of his well-cut mouth.

  Before she knew it, she heard herself ask, “What do you think?”

  “I love it,” he said. “But the important question is, what do you think? Do the boots fit? Is the outfit comfortable?”

  “It is, actually.” She scratched her fingers through her strange, short hair. “I’m just surprised. This isn’t what I was expecting.”

  His gaze searched hers. “Do you like it?”

  She looked down at herself as well. “I do. I’m not su
re it’s me though.”

  “It can be you if you want it to be,” said the tempter from the Garden of Eden. “Sometimes, you know, as a mood thing.” He held up a finger. “Wait, don’t make up your mind yet. We’re not done.”

  She pursed her lips. “What do you mean, we’re not done?”

  His eyes smiled into hers. “Humor me for a while longer. Please? It won’t hurt. It’s just for fun. And this time it’s not even wicked or bad,” said the voice of original sin. “And you might even like it as well.”

  Fun. There was that word again, that incomprehensible, three-letter word. His eyes were so warm and inviting, as warm as his body, and more compelling than any fire. It was so easy to indulge him when he coaxed, she found herself smiling back. “Whatever. Just, fine.”

  “Thank you, Carling,” he murmured. He kissed her lightly and took her by the hand, and she found herself going back into the bathroom with him. He coaxed her into sitting on the counter. Then he dumped the contents of the shopping bag onto the counter beside her. She looked down at a pile of Guerlain cosmetics and burst out laughing.

  Rune opened up a palette of eye color and held it up to her face, considering. He nodded and set it aside.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” she said.

  Next he opened a blusher compact, held it up to her face, and considered again. He squinted an eye, shrugged then set the blusher aside.

  “Rune,” Carling said, staring at him. She had no words to describe the incredulity she felt.

  “What?” He gave her that sleepy, dangerous smile. “You said you’d humor me,” he said. “So humor me.”

  Carling said, “But I have phone calls to make.”

  “Seremela is on her way, the Djinn is working on his task, and any phone calls that need to be made can wait fifteen minutes.” As she struggled to find some argument, Rune raised an eyebrow. “Am I right?”

  She heaved a put-upon sigh, because really, sometimes there was just no other way to communicate something.

  “I know,” he soothed as he opened a packet containing a sable brush. “High-heeled boots, jeans and now this. It’s all so very hard to take.”

  “You have no idea,” she muttered.

  “Hush. Now close your eyes.”

  Then, because humoring him for fifteen minutes would be much faster than arguing with him, she did just that. After all, it wasn’t as if she had never worn makeup before. She had worn makeup countless times. During the Roman Empire, she’d had a cosmetae just for the purpose of putting on her cosmetics. She had worn her face and hair powdered in the Rococo style, in mid-eighteenth-century France. She had grown to find the canvass of her own face so utterly boring she had walked away from all of it long ago.

  But for Rune to take such a ludicrous notion into his head, to do this here, now. It turned something that had become old, cynical and eventually tedious into something utterly strange, erotic and somehow touching.

  She gripped the edge of the counter with both hands in the effort to hold still as he made love to her face. He stroked brushes over her sensitive skin. He prompted her to tilt her head with a featherlight touch of fingers and barely audible murmur. She felt the heat of his body burn against the outside of her knee as he leaned his hip against her leg. She smelled the scent of his arousal as she listened to the sound of his unhurried breathing and the light shift of cloth against skin when he moved.

  It was clear that he had no agenda of seducing her into sex, and none of it felt like objectification. He merely enjoyed her, and it was such a new experience it threw her back to that first new experience, that terrifying time when she was made up with kohl, green malachite and red ochre so that she could seduce a god. How strange, that something that happened so long ago could still have the power to fill her eyes with tears.

  Or maybe that was just Rune, reawakening her soul.

  And she let him.

  “Purse your lips,” Rune murmured.

  She did, and he kissed her mouth with soft lipstick. She opened her eyes the merest sliver to look at his quiet, intent face. The light from over the bathroom mirror shone in his eyes and filled them with light. He put a forefinger under her chin to hold her in place as he studied her.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m done.”

  She opened her eyes. They stared at each other. His gaze dilated, fixed totally on her. He wiped the edge of her lower lip with the corner of his thumb, and breathed, “‘She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that’s best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes.’ Darling, you have always been gorgeous but now you are now officially the shit.”

  One corner of her mouth trembled, and lifted. “You really think so?”

  “I know so,” he said, and his voice was lower, rougher than it had been before. He pulled her off the counter and turned her to face the mirror, and once again, she stared at herself. She ignored her own features to concentrate on the deft delicacy with which he had enlarged her eyes, emphasized the high cheekbones, and brightened her full mouth. He had not put a single brush stroke wrong. She looked bright and beautiful, and she glowed like a cherished woman.

  Cherished.

  She leaned back against his chest. He put his arms around her. Their eyes met again in the mirror, that elegant dangerous Rune and the strange new woman, and the impact of the connection was as raw as when Paris and Helen first looked into each others’ eyes and brought a world of gods and men to war.

  Or maybe that was just the cyclone that roared into the bathroom to coalesce into the tall figure of a haughty prince.

  Carling and Rune both turned as one to look at Khalil.

  The Djinn held out his hand. On the broad white palm lay a black, half-crushed length. Time had corroded it so badly it was barely recognizable as a knife.

  FIFTEEN

  Rune stood like stone, his body clenched.

  Carling reached out slowly to pick up the knife and closed her fist around it. She looked up at Khalil’s strange diamond-like gaze. The Djinn was watching her, head cocked, his expression filled with curiosity.

  However, he did not ask for an explanation. Instead, he said, “This completes the second of the three favors I have owed you.”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Thank you, Khalil.”

  He inclined his head. Something else flickered across his spare features, and in a rare gesture, he touched her fingers. Then he disappeared in a whirlwind of Power.

  Carling turned to Rune. He was staring at her fist, the skin around his mouth white. A vein in his temple throbbed visibly.

  She could not remember her original past, but in this past they had created together, she remembered the first time she had laid eyes on him as a mature Vampyre. She almost didn’t recognize him, it had been so long since he had killed the priest and changed her life. But then there was something about the way he moved, and the way he smiled that wild white smile of his that drove females crazy with desire.

  She had watched it all with a cold, expressionless face and an aged heart that had grown so cynical it no longer believed in anything except that things always change. And then on the island, she had demanded he kneel, and he had kissed her and she was dying, and he still had not remembered her, and so she struck at him with all the rage and pain she had inside—Her past may have changed and yet it was all deeper and truer than it had been before. She could even see how she must have lived her life before he had ever come into it, like shadows of reality, another Carling, much like the sketch of the island outline as it lay over the Bay’s horizon. It was so strange, how all the pieces fit seamlessly together.

  Now she realized there was a problem with choosing not to stay in love with him. How could she hope to recover from such feelings or set them aside, when he was standing right in front of her, embodying everything that had slipped past her barriers and caused her to fall in love with him in the first place?

  He was everything she could have wished for in a life p
artner and far more than she had ever hoped to find, with his compassion and caring, his intellect that was so well seasoned in nuance and strategy, his ruthlessness tempered with reason, mischievous wit and a warrior’s strength that was so indomitable, she could lean on him when she felt weak and he could match her when they went head-to-head.

  As she had told him, she was not good at surrender. Something inside of her was too fierce to bend easily or often, too well entrenched in the habit of rule. But she found she had to bow to her own feelings on this and surrender to the experience of loving him, because it was simply impossible to do anything else.

  She reached up and stroked his temple. He was clearly suffering for some reason, and it hurt her to see it. She said gently, “We knew this was possible.”

  “Yes.” He took her hand, pressed her fingers against his mouth and closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure what hit him the hardest.

  He had actually changed history. He thought of the priest he had killed and he realized that wasn’t what shook him so badly. Every time he had to kill, he changed the course of the future. He had accepted that responsibility a very long time ago.

  No, what really shook him to his foundation was the thought of how many times Carling had slipped into the fade either alone or with only Rhoswen, or other Vampyres and humans to guard her. The doorway to her past had stood wide open many times for any dark creature or spirit of Power with the capacity to slip through. She had once mentioned that she had enemies. Any person with her Power and at her level of position would.

  What if something had already slipped through and was stalking her in the past? Her episodes seemed to be some kind of conduit for him. When they stopped, the passageway closed and he came back to the present. What if something else found a way to stay back in the past?