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“Good man,” she murmured, finding herself reluctant to move yet. Glancing up, she saw she was in a position to watch the sunset without being burned by it. As it was off to the left, she couldn’t see the orb itself, only the panorama of colors it flung against the sky. Red and gold, violet and pink. Opening up her mind to the sleeping Dev, she gave him the beauty of it to soothe his exhaustion into deeper sleep.
When she’d been younger, long before her father had been killed, she hadn’t been sure whether she liked living in the Outback.
There seemed to be so much space, and the sunlight was fierce, and frightening. Then one day, her mother took her into a room where they could be out of the sun’s direct light, like this, but she could still see the full tapestry of a sunset. There’d been nothing in its way, for it was the side of the house that didn’t face the mountains. Just the clear, flat expanse of the bush, the occasional tree or hump of scrub. And the sky and the colors were so immense . . . so . . .
It makes you feel like nothing, which at times can be the most comforting feeling in the world.
He’d opened his eyes. She’d let her thoughts as well as her vision fill his head, so now she closed the connection, softly, as she might a favored book, and looked down at him. “I told my mother our land had reached out and marked me, as surely as we bind others to us with our blood.”
“Is that how you do it? The third time? The servant drinks from you?”
The air stilled between them as she saw his gaze move over her throat, considering. It was as heavy and momentous as the artistry spread beyond the cave entrance. His fingers were stroking her arm, absent movements that rippled all the way to her toes.
Then his stomach gurgled at her. The dangerous moment passed, the question left unanswered, for both of them. Danny laid a hand on his abdomen. “Why don’t I put together something from the tucker you’re carrying? I’m not a bad cook.” That surprised him, she could tell. “Why would a vampire cook?”
Rising, she went to the pack, began to rummage. “You can savor food without eating it. You focus on the smell, appearance . . .
texture. You can enjoy just the taste, letting it rest on your tongue, swirl it in your mouth like wine. It’s a very satisfying experience.” Giving him a sidelong glance, she added, “I love to watch a man cook for me. The way his hands move over the food, creating something tempting to all the senses, not merely weight for his gullet. It’s very . . . stimulating.” He snorted, pulling himself into a sitting position, bending his knees and linking dirty hands over them. “Well, I got a ton of metal out of the muck for you, love. I’m a bit jagged out. I’ll amaze you with my culinary talents another day. Don’t want to overwhelm you all at once, after all. But I might be able to handle the stimulating part.” She tossed him a reproving look. “You keep letting your cock do your thinking, it’s going to kill you. You stay there and rest.” He smiled again. “You’re a tease, love. Don’t think I don’t know it.” Then he sobered. “Once I eat, we should get on our way. We can make it to your place by sunrise if we don’t run into any other problems.”
“Like the vehicle dying?”
He shook his head. “It’s old, but it’s a Studie. It’s got some heart, though it’ll likely rattle our teeth loose over this terrain.” Though she wished she had enough experience driving off road to offer to take the wheel, give him more of a rest, she nodded.
Instead she put her effort into reviving their small fire, now that night had descended, using the kindling he’d thoughtfully collected.
With his intrigued direction, she used his odd assortment of stores, including tubers, bark and flowers he’d picked up on today’s travails, to make a passable meal with his dried meat.
When at last she brought him the plate, Danny had a strong desire to feed him with her own fingers, but suspected that might lead her into selfish temptation to do more than that. He was so tantalizing, she couldn’t help herself. Curbing the impulse, she handed him the plate, taking a seat on the nearby rock. “What happened to your station?” she asked instead. “The one you had before the war.”
She wasn’t sure if it was a painful topic, so his shrug was a relief as he began to work on the food slowly, building fuel again.
“When I joined the militia headed for New Guinea in ’42, I gave the place to a mate of mine. Tom. Him and his family.”
“I suppose you got a good price for it. Pretty land up in Queensland.”
“You’ve been prying, love. But not deep enough. I didn’t sell it. I gave it to him.” At her startled look, he shrugged again. “He needed it, I didn’t. Tom does right by it. He knows the business. Plus . . .” Dev put down the tuber that had cooked up with a sweet yam smell, wiped his fingers on his trouser leg. “Well, he watches over them for me, Tina and Rob. I told him Tina’s favorite wildflowers, so he could bring them to her stone when the wet grows them.
After I signed up for the regular army, he wrote and told me he put a swing out near there for his kids. So Rob would have friends.
Tina would have liked that. My word, she loved to watch that kid. Sometimes I’d come up on her, just watching him grow. She’d forget what she was doing entirely. Once I even had to scold her, because she forgot to cover up the grain bin. Got distracted playing with him, and the chickens got all in it. He was such a strong little chap, a fierce fella.” He stared at the plate. “Sounds crook, but I’m glad she died with him. She wouldn’t have survived losing him like that.”
“I don’t think you survived it,” she observed softly. At his look, she added, “That man is gone, isn’t he? You’re never going back.”
“Well, my favorite chair has the shape of Tom’s bum now, instead of mine. No point.” He extended the plate to her. “Thanks for the meal, love. If you get our camp cleaned up, I’ll give that old ute one last check and load us up.” As they trundled along in the darkness, Dev keeping his gaze focused on the terrain they were covering, Danny gave him more details of what lay ahead.
“Ian won’t deny he was behind the attack,” she explained. “If anything, he’ll cheerfully admit to it, ask if I was impressed. All the while plotting how he’ll have me staked by the end of the evening, either literally or in a far more carnal manner.” At his startled look, she waved a hand. “He’ll provide us dinner first.”
“Oh, well, since you put it that way, no worries. And what should I be doing?”
“Keeping your eyes and ears open. He’ll have a human staff, and most of his stockmen likely do double duty as his thugs.” Putting out a hand to make him bring the ute to a stop, she drew his full attention. “If his intent is to stake me, rather than work out our differences another way, and he manages it, you are released from any other responsibility to me. Vengeance, while a sentimental and appreciated notion, is entirely foolish and unnecessary in this case. For one thing, there’s no need for you to get involved in our bloody politics. As much as you know about me, I could be as bad as any of the lot. So don’t sacrifice yourself.” When he would have spoken, she held up that hand. “For another, you won’t have any chance, fighting against a vampire and his mob. In vampire fights, humans are nothing. And that’s not the good kind of ‘nothing,’ like sunsets. More like the way aborigines used to be viewed by settlers.”
“Hmmm.” He gave that noncommittal grunt that was changing Danny’s opinion of his ancestry. She suspected he had some Scot mixed with aboriginal and Irish blood, for that grunt held a wealth of meaning, none of it satisfying her as an agreement. “You old enough to remember that, love?”
“Yes.” The blacks had been hunted like vermin, a nuisance. Some of the settlers, those who hadn’t wanted to waste ammunition, had offered damper to traveling groups of aborigines as an apparent kindness. A gift infused with poison, like baiting traps for rats.
Yes, being “nothing” in this country also had its downside. She knew that firsthand, because she was about to be back among the sort who took great advantage of it.
She said little else on the drive through the darkness, though she didn’t hesitate to use her exceptional senses to warn him of unexpected animal crossings, the signs of deep sand or other things he’d see, but only a precious few seconds later. He suspected she’d make a hell of a tracker, what with her superior eyesight and speed. Of course, vampires being predators, he likely wouldn’t want to know how she employed the skills.
She hadn’t yet told him how old she was, but he found her short answer to his question fascinating, because it was obvious she could speak to things directly that were unfortunate historical facts to him, or things his grandparents had told him.
However, it was unlike her to be so silent. He didn’t think her increasing pensiveness was due to somber reflection on the tragedies of the past. She wasn’t a female chatterbox, but he was used to her dry wit, catty observations and the occasional question. As he glanced over, he noted her stillness was becoming predatory again, the way her head turned, the glitter of her gaze in the semidarkness like a waiting croc. It had him inventorying the weaponry he had, and figuring how much could be worn to dinner without offending their bloodsucking host.
“We’re about fifteen minutes from the house now,” she said, pointing to a stand of eucalyptus, a post marker. “Do you remember all I told you?”
“Yeah. When we get out of the car, I give this Ian a smart thump in the teeth.”
“Dev.”
He waved a hand. “I cover humans, you handle vampires.”
“Follow my lead,” she added. The darkness had turned the blue of her eyes black. “While you’re not my servant, you’re in my employ and marked twice. They’ll expect you to defer to me as such. If you don’t, it will undermine my authority. That’s a perception we don’t want them to have.”
