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He nodded. Halfway to their table, he stopped by the child and mother making a castle out of sugar cubes. The boy was adding glitter to the upper turrets while the mother cut out construction paper flags to put on the top ramparts. She glanced up at Dante, did a double take, and Alexis moved in smoothly to his right. "That's lovely," she told the child, a boy with rumpled red hair and long-lashed green eyes. "Is it your castle, or someone else's?"
He produced an action figure Alexis recognized from television. "Well, I think he'll be very happy with that."
When Dante squatted down to the child-sized table to touch the castle, it placed him well within the mother's personal space buffer. She inched away, but Dante ignored her.
He'd assessed her and determined her as harmless, Alexis realized. On top of that, he'd done what any dominant animal would do. Taken over her space and made her move, acknowledging his superiority. The child, not as attuned to such nuances, was across the table, studying him curiously. Dante picked up one of the cubes to examine it. Digging into the box of sugar cubes, the boy handed him one. "Eat this one instead. That has glue on it. Though be careful, cause if you eat too many, you can go crazy and drive your mommy into a loony bin. That's what Mama says."
"Will," the mother began, but Dante took the cube. When he did, his larger fingers closed over the child's smaller ones. He stopped, going very still, and then closed his hand over the child's wrist, turning the palm.
"Sir--"
"My friend means him no harm." Alexis laid a hand on the woman's shoulder, giving her a strong push of calming energy. She was a fortyish woman with green eyes like her son, and laugh lines. Lex sensed a busy life, stresses over money, childcare . . . in short, a normal human, well balanced between the forces of good and evil. She was a good parent. "My friend has been in a special home, and hasn't seen a child in a very long time."
"Why are your sunglasses so dark?" Will asked. "Are you blind?"
"No." Dante stared at a scratch on the small palm. "How did that happen?"
"School. I was playing kickball and fell down. But I kicked it really far. I get picked at least third when they're choosing teams. Try the sugar." He disentangled his hand from Dante's and extended it toward his mouth. "It's really good. I like sucking on it until it melts."
After a pause, Dante opened his mouth and let Will put the sugar cube on his tongue. Alexis was relieved to note the gesture didn't noticeably expose his fangs. He closed his mouth, and his jaw moved, rolling the cube over his taste buds.
"See? But remember, too many and you go craaazy." Will giggled. "Right, Mama?"
Alexis smiled at him. Dante rose and jerked his head at their table, moving away toward it. Lex nodded to the boy and his mother. "He doesn't talk a lot, but he's happy to meet you." With a last bolstering shot for Will's mom, so she didn't run to the front desk and tell them there was an odd adult male touching the children, she followed Dante.
The metal chairs were far too small for his large frame, but he perched gracefully enough, reminding her of how he'd looked like a hunting raptor when he crouched on the wall in Mina's cave. Alexis sat next to him. Cupping the back of her neck, he drew her toward his mouth. Knowing he intended to weaken her knees and flood her mind with warm molasses, she had a brief thought to stop him, not wanting to incite any more interest in their presence. But she suspected he would never permit her to deny him on this, which actually weakened her knees more. When he teased her lips apart this time, though, his kiss was mild. For him. Merely incendiary instead of full conflagration. She made a surprised noise as he tumbled the partially melted cube of sugar onto her tongue, bringing sweetness with the heat. He pulled back. "It is a different taste. But I prefer your blood."
Alexis took in a steadying breath, wondering how many of those she would need before the end of the day. Hyperventilation was a real possibility. "I think meals should also be a private thing. Else they'll be calling the police."
She had to explain how law enforcement worked, then, which he viewed with great suspicion. Soon after, she had him distracted with other things. He investigated glue, felt, sequins, pipe cleaners, clay, yarn. As he took things out of the cubbyholes, he left them wherever he put them down, moving on to the next thing which caught his interest. Alexis patiently returned them to their proper place, except when he said that he wanted to use something. Then she took it to their table.
As she moved around, she noticed that when others came near him, even the children, he tensed, watching them closely and determining their intent before he returned to his own rummaging. In contrast, however she approached him, there was no tension when she laid a hand on his back or arm, as if he always was aware of her presence, no matter where she was.
Bemused, she saw a small girl slip into the child-sized space between his body and the cubbies to squat down and pull construction paper out of the lower area. He watched her, tension turning to curiosity as she bit her lip with the effort of pulling the yellow out from beneath the red and brown. The curve of her young back pressed against his shins. Unconcerned by adult presence as children were, she rose after obtaining her objective, returning to her table.
Shaking her head and holding on to her smile, Lex turned to organizing the items he'd wanted thus far in a way that ensured he had a clear work space. But when she returned to him, he'd changed tactics. He was putting away the things he'd been looking at while she was busy. As she approached, he looked toward an older girl working on a clay bunny. She gave him an approving nod, her multiple pigtails and bows nodding at different velocities.
"She told me I had to put away my own things." He gestured at a rule board on the wall. "Every person cleans up their own mess. Not mommy or daddy, or even my friend. You."
"Oh." She lifted a shoulder, not sure what to say to the faint accusation in his tone, even as her mouth quirked at his dutiful obedience to an imperious nine-year-old. "I like being considered your friend."
He gave her an assessing look. "My mother said vampires have few close friends. She said we do not trust easily, and we are very territorial. A close friend was someone who could be trusted, relied upon to help if there was trouble. When I asked why her close friends didn't help her now, she said they were too far away to help. That they might not even know she was in trouble, because vampires often disappear for long periods of time."
Looking down at the multicolored pom-poms he held, he closed his fingers over the soft give of the balls. "So far, it seems you are my friend."
Her humo
r gone, Alexis nodded, closing her hand on his forearm. "I hope I am. But a close friend also looks out for your best interests, even if you don't agree with them. They have to be brave enough to risk the friendship, tell you the truth when you need to hear it."
He gave her an ironic look. "So why didn't you tell me the rules? Why did you . . . clean up my mess?"
Alexis sighed, gave him a helpless shrug. "Sometimes a friend also knows when to ease up. When you need room to figure things out, without a lot of interruptions."
"All right." He digested that, turned toward their table. Before they got there, however, he stopped again, drawing her face up to meet his eyes. "A softhearted friend may give too much. Make herself too vulnerable, causing me to be more protective than she thinks I need to be."
Alexis narrowed her gaze. "I'm sorry, we're only psychoanalyzing you today. You're the one from an alternate dimension."
He raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything else, the nine-year-old piped up. "You can't fight in here. That's rule number eight." She pointed to the board for emphasis.
"No fighting," Dante agreed, glancing at Alexis. "You must accept my opinion, so we will not fight."
Alexis had a colorful response to that, but she issued it in her mind so she didn't break rule number four. His mouth twisted, and she waited, hoping she might see his first smile. Instead, he gave her a quick look over the top of his glasses, his red eyes glinting with the promise of a retribution so adult, it wasn't covered on the rule board.
"Behave," she whispered, though she couldn't help the shiver as he slid his knuckles down her arm.
Fortunately, he did for a time. While he tried paints, clay and other mediums, each scrape of a chair on the floor, a higher decibel of laughter, would earn a quick tilt of his head, a flicker of the extraordinary eyes behind the glasses. When five women entered, a craft club who wanted to work on their scrapbooking, there was a new level of chatter and gossiping to assimilate. As she hoped, he appeared to be analyzing how children and adults alike interacted with one another.
