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She stepped off him and her hands caught his eye. “You’re still sporting a ruff.”
She lifted both hands. “This is weird. I mean, they usually disappear right away.” She touched the ruff at her neck. “I didn’t expect it to stay.”
He took one of her hands and as he’d done earlier to her neck, he now buried his nose in the soft white fur, flared his nostrils, and drank in her scent. With the fur, the apple blossoms carried an earthy layer that aroused him. Using his teeth, and without thinking, he nibbled at the layers.
He heard her gasp. When he lifted his head, she seemed startled. “What is it?”
“You have that feel about you right now, like you’re going to stop thinking any second and go all caveman on me.” She smiled, adding, “And as much as I’d like that, I think we should eat before things go any farther.”
“You’re right.” But his mind felt muddled.
When she turned away from him and opened the front door, he followed behind as if she held him by a leash. With her scent in his nose, he wanted more. He was almost behaving more shifter-like than vampire—another undecipherable in his current life.
He was pure vampire. That much he knew, but not necessarily around Lorelei. And maybe that’s what Davido had meant, that the few indiscernible markers he carried simply by being ‘realm’ had been awakened by Lorelei. The fact that he wanted to bite the back of her neck was proof enough that his thinking had made a jump in an unexpected direction.
She went straight to the kitchen and simply took charge, heating a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup that his housekeeper had left for him in a tureen in the fridge. She sliced off thick slabs of the homemade sourdough bread, buttering each thoroughly, popping them afterwards in the oven to broil.
Finally able to access his rational brain, he asked, “Wine?”
“Lovely.” She smiled at him over her shoulder, the fur still visible on her wrists.
His jaw trembled for things he didn’t understand. He needed to bond with her. That’s what shot through his head. He needed to mark her, mate with her, bond her to him and do it now. His whole body called out for it, demanded he pull rank and let her know she belonged to him, only to him.
Taking several deep breaths, he forced himself to leave the kitchen and went down the stairs into a deep cave where he kept hundreds of bottles of wine, all at appropriate temperatures. He pulled a bottle of sweet German white wine from a cooling fridge. He wasn’t sure why, but most realm-folk, and especially his mastyr vampire brethren, loved this wine.
He took it upstairs and found Lorelei had set the table and was already ladling the soup into bowls.
“Smells wonderful.” She’d added a platter of sharp cheddar cheese, grapes and figs, the fruit imported from Columbus, Ohio, his realm’s earth access point. “You work fast.”
She put a hand to her stomach. “That’s because I’m beyond starved.”
She fetched a couple of wine glasses as he opened the bottle, then brought the soup and bread to the table. She sat down to wait while he poured the wine.
He took a seat across from her, and here was another first, a woman in his breakfast nook, dining with him. His brain refused to compute this new information so he picked up his spoon and she joined him.
She ate slowly and quietly, her gaze moving as it often did to the view of Defiance Falls to the north. In the distance, the Shauck River fell from tall, three hundred foot cliffs in a dozen different places. Fir trees and shrubs grew up around the same area, and for some reason he started telling her about the Shauck Mountains and more about the bridges he’d built, and all the help he’d had, especially from the troll community who were excellent at executing the wood suspension configurations.
She asked simple but pointed questions that kept the topic moving from bridges to gorges, to the farms that he had the most difficulty protecting, to his Vampire Guard that had spent two weeks in Ferrenden Peace.
She smiled. “I often went into town during that time, when your Guard was there, especially the pubs. Quinlan and Batya had already left, but I was free to roam at will, never having to worry about Margetta. Your men, as well as Quinlan’s troll brigade, had a superb time, having been given permission to spread their seed at will to help expand the city’s genetic base. I had to keep my shifter-senses shut down a little because the scent of sex in the air was everywhere and you were on my mind.”
He leaned forward and took her hand, holding her gaze. “Wish I could have been there to take care of you. I would have, in a heartbeat.”
She spoke softly. “Seth.” And her light apple blossom scent rushed over him.
He let her hand go and leaned back in his chair. She needed to eat especially since she’d be feeding him soon, but he longed to pick her up and carry her to his bed.
He picked up his spoon instead, and focused on eating. He kept the conversation from that point focused on the history of his realm.
When he was done with his meal, he rose from his chair. “Please take your time and eat all you want. Right now I have to call my second-in-command to see how things are shaping up tonight in the south.”
“Of course.”
He moved into the living room and pulled his cell from the pocket of his battle leathers. “Hey, Aaron. What’s the climate out there?”
“The Invictus are quiet, maybe too quiet for my taste.” He detailed how he’d apportioned the Vampire Guard throughout the lower half of the realm, standard procedure, an arrangement Seth had built through reviewing battle logs over the past century. His Guard had one of the highest kill-rates in the Nine Realms because of his attention to enemy attack patterns, and his analytical mind.
Aaron added that Mastyr Jude had called about half an hour ago. “He said one of his most powerful fae had had a vision that he’s to come to Walvashorr to help out with some kind of event, but he couldn’t say what. I think he wants a call back. Do you have something planned I don’t know about?”
